Article

The Effects of Group Counseling for Improving School Adjustment - A focus on maladjusted elementary students

Author

조현주

Information

pp. 103~123 / 2010 Vol.17 No.1

Abstract

The study was designed to evaluate the effects of group counseling for school-unadjusted children who areat risk of lasting school adjustment. The program focused on the decrease of behavioral problems and theenhancement of self esteem, parent-children communication, interpersonal relationship competence andschool life and class attitudes. The subjects were recruited from those elementary school students who hadbeen referred to counseling for school maladjustment problems by the class’ teacher and they were thendivided into experimental and control groups. There were a total of 10 sessions during the 5 week studyperiod, each session lasting for 90 minutes. The self-esteem scales, parent communication scales,interpersonal relationship competence scales, behavioral problem scales, and the class teachers\' evaluations ofchildren problematic behavior scales were used for this study. The results showed that at post t-test, thesubjects who had participated in counseling groups(group) reported significant improvement of self esteem,communication levels between parent and child, interpersonal relationship competence and experienced adecrease in behavioral problems (in self-report and class’ teachers’ evaluation), while the control group didnot report any significant improvements or decreases. At the 18 day follow-up point, these changesexperienced by the experiment group on the improvement of self-esteem scale, interpersonal relationshipcompetence scale and decrease of behavioral problems scale remained. However, the differences between thetwo groups had decreased at the 18 day follow-up test point. Finally, the implications and limitations ofthis study were discussed.Key words : maladjusted children, behavioral problems, self esteem, parent-children communication, interpersonalrelationships

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