Mixed Methods Research Study

Clients will be asked to address any changes they are experiencing in their daily life that they may credit to participation in group, either negatively or positively. Clients will also be asked about their status with behavioral goals, intimacy with support systems, and any contact that has been initiated with former group members. This follow-up interview is intended to give the facilitators valuable feedback on the immediate effects of the group counseling experience, feedback for future groups, and networking connections for future individual or group work with

Rational for the Group: The need for conducting a group counseling program for adolescents is crucial because they are in a very critical stage in their life. Group couselling for

A community garden can serve as an outdoor classroom where youth can learn many valuable skills, like those involving practical math, communication, responsibility and cooperation among each other. They can also provide an opportunity to learn the importance of community and become closer to the environment by giving a deep understanding of how plants grow. In California, the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners has a program in Alemany, a community with an unemployment rate of eighty four percent, which employs twenty to twenty-five local youth during the school year and about sixty during the summer. They are trained in gardening, landscaping, habitat restoration, work skills and leadership development (Feenstra et al, 1999

The data revealed that the small counseling sessions that the student participating in was successful since there was an increase for the mean, median and mode for GPA and SAT Math and Verbal after the small group counseling sessions. For the Test Anxiety Questionnaire, there was a decrease in the mean, median, and mode.

Since the environment among a school is not that of a clinic or an outside counseling practice, certain planning needs to occur while forming groups. Rather than client’s willingly signing up or seeking out a group, a survey would be completed by faculty and staff to identify potential group members. Students would also participate in the survey process, giving perception of their needs. These surveys would be a form of data collection necessary in addressing needs that could otherwise be unknown. Following this, a meeting with potential group members would take place individually. The students would be informed about the group and what they may gain from it. Expectations, participation and confidentially would also be discussed. From these meetings, the counselor would then be able to determine the student’s interest level and seriousness of need or participation. With careful evaluation, this screening leads to group selection. Informed consent would be introduced and could have been completes prior to the screening. Although minors need parental consent, it is still essential for all students participating to sign and understand the informed consent. Prior to the group meeting, it is the counselor’s

The philosophy of the group counseling approach is to focus on the strengths and life skills opposed to punitive measures

The student lead group conducted in class was a time-limited group, where the same group of people attended a specific number of sessions, who started and finished together. The Treatment Improvement Protocol (2005) discusses the four group development and phase‐specific tasks and explains how fixed membership is used in the group setting. Fixed groups typically only offer 8-20 sessions (Treatment Improvement Protocol, 2005); in comparison, the student led groups’ duration lasted for eight sessions. This type of group would be considered a small therapeutic group because it met the socio-emotional needs of each member by providing support, socialization, and facilitating growth (Toseland & Rivas, 2014). Although both counseling and brief groups are relatively similar, the student led groups structure style fits more as a counseling group. In this group, members were able to resolve usual, often difficult, problems in their lives (Corey et al.,

Research methodology generally involves qualitative research or quantitative research, or a mixture of both. A quantitative research methodology involves the analysis of data collected from a large number of surveys or interviews. On the other hand, methodologies for qualitative research often involve using surveys or interviews to collect information about people — their attitudes, experiences and behaviors.

Group counseling may be adverted to as a course of counseling, which takes a group of people coming together under one or more trained therapists, who simultaneously facilitate them and promote them to help one another to overcome their challenges. The group members are usually peers who may not necessarily face the same problem, but their problems may be linked. According to Jacobs, Masson, Harvill and Schimmel (2012), all members in a counseling group wish and desire personal growth. This kind of therapy has been employed over the years and it has produced excellent results in the lives of the group members.

The program consists of 10 sessions designed to be delivered in weekly sessions of approximately one hour each. As it can be seen on Table 6.1, during the sessions children are involved in activities aimed at teaching them coping skills and problem solving techniques, thereby, helping them deal more effectively with challenging situations in life. Before the program starts, each group facilitator receives a group leader manual and each child receives an activity book that they complete throughout the program’s implementation (Barrett,

The program started the following week and the whole intervention was conducted over two school terms with weekly sessions of 30 minutes each (approximately 5 months). Three classroom

Children that were recruited to participate were assigned to either a treatment or non-treatment group based on parental consent, and willingness to be involved in therapeutic interventions. Those who were interested in receiving both therapy and being involved in the study were assigned to a treatment group, and those interested only in being part of the study were assigned to the non-treatment group. Due to the nature of this study, an option of random assignment was not feasible, and instead children were each assigned to their group. Screening interviews and pretreatment assessment occurred one month before treatment began. The participants then began receiving intervention or no intervention and immediately after treatment were given a post treatment assessment. In addition to the assessment at the conclusion of treatment, two more assessments were given at a one-year, and 10-year follow up.

Participants: M. Parker, Guidance Counselor, B. Michael, Social worker, Parent, D. Shaw Principal, S. Roberts, Behavioral Consultant, Classroom Teachers; D. Chemnitz and C. Ragusa

Of these 228 participants, 111 participants were in the immediate intervention group and 117 participants were in the delayed intervention group. The delayed intervention group received the intervention 3 months after the immediate intervention group.

"With the development and perceived legitimacy of both qualitative and quantitative research in social and human sciences, mixed methods research, employing the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, has gained popularity." (Creswell, p. 203). Describe the development of mixed methodology in educational research. Discuss the steps that need to be taken to develop a viable mixed methods research study.