The Group Questionnaire (GQ) was developed to measure group therapeutic processes-which are linked to successful prediction of patient outcome and therapeutic factors-across three qualitative dimensions (positive bond, positive work, and negative relationship) and three structural dimensions (member-leader, member-member, and member-group). The GQ model has been shown to be valid across 5 settings and 4 countries. As a clinical measure given after each session, length is of particular concern. Although shorter measures are more convenient for clients and therapists to use, fewer items necessarily means less information, a loss of psychometrics, and possible floor and ceiling effects. This study examined the effects of shortening the GQ on its clinical utility and psychometric integrity. Methods. Archival data from 7 previous studies was used, with 2,594 participants in an estimated 455 groups gathered from counseling centers, non-clinical process groups, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, outpatient psychiatric hospitals, and an inpatient state hospital. Participants answered questions from the Group Questionnaire administered during the productive working phase of a group. Analysis. Analysis was done using multilevel structural equation modeling in Mplus to account for the nested nature of groups. Items were selected using clinical judgment and statistical judgment considering inter item correlation and factor loading. Model fit was analyzed in comparison to the standards in the literature and in comparison to the full length GQ. Discussion. The revised 12 item GQ has good model fit and acceptable reliability. Further assessment is needed to determine how the reduction affects clinical utility.

The current dissertation is a replication of a pilot study and aims to define what it means for group leaders to "act on" feedback from a group therapy process measure called the Group Questionnaire (GQ). Twelve leaders received feedback reports based on group member responses to the GQ after each session. Leaders submitted two sources of qualitative data: brief written session-by-session explanations of feedback use and end-of-semester debrief interviews to describe their experience with the measure. Researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis that yielded 15 categories of leader GQ use summarized by three temporal dimensions. Quantitative analyses were performed to test for variability in leader use. Categories common to both the pilot study and the current study were established, and the two data sets were merged to create one complete data set. A brief questionnaire designed to summarize leader use is introduced, and quantitative analyses were performed to test the relationship between this measure and qualitative findings. Finally, implications of these findings are discussed.

Therapeutic alliance, cohesion, and group climate are all important relationship components of group therapy which have been shown to predict client outcome. Yet, due to discrepancies in how these are defined and measured in the literature, how these three constructs differentially predict outcome is not yet fully understood. For instance, most studies only assess a single construct and often do so with outcome assessed from a pre-post perspective rather than continuously. The present study is an archival analysis on Group Questionnaire (GQ) positive bond and Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45) data that aims to elucidate the predictive relationship of therapeutic alliance, group cohesion, and climate with client outcome in group therapy. Furthermore, this study is intended to clarify past discrepancies by studying alliance, cohesion, and group climate simultaneously, as well as address limitations of previous studies by exploring the relationship with outcome over the life of a group using continuous data. Results demonstrate that symptom improvement on the OQ-45 total score has a positive relationship with each of the GQ positive bond constructs (i.e., alliance, cohesion, and climate). This relationship was significant regarding session-to-session fluctuations on a given client's scores, as well as regarding differences between clients in their personal averages across sessions. However, when linear growth trajectories are considered that take session to session change in the three relationship constructs and outcome, only alliance emerges as a significant predictor of improvement. In other words, alliance, climate, cohesion all predict outcome when time is ignored; however, only alliance significantly predicts outcome when change over time is taken into account. These results highlight the importance of the client-therapist relationship to outcome in group therapy setting, mirroring some past research findings.

Researchers and clinicians have long recognized that therapeutic relationships play a fundamental role in client symptom change during treatment. At the same time, it has been proposed that improvement in client symptoms is associated with improvement in therapeutic relationships. To date, very few studies have investigated this reciprocal relationship; even fewer have examined group therapeutic relationship factors. The present study is an archival analysis on Group Questionnaire (GQ) (i.e., positive bond, positive work, and negative relationship) and Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45) data that aims to analyze the reciprocal relationship between group therapeutic relationships and client symptom change. More specifically, this study replicates and expands upon pioneer studies in this area (i.e., Tasca & Lampard, 2012; Tasca et al., 2016b; Obeid et al., 2018). Various analyses were used to address the proposed research questions (i.e., bivariate cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), latent growth curve model with structured residuals (LGC-SR), latent change score model with change-to-change coupling (LCS-CC), and three-level multilevel models). Results indicate weak evidence of a reciprocal relationship between group therapeutic relationships and client symptom change. Further, results indicate that therapeutic relationship quality is more dominant in predicting client symptoms change compared to the reciprocal. Evidence of this was found for each subscale of the GQ as it assessed various aspects of group therapeutic relationships (i.e., positive bond, positive work, negative relationship). These results highlight the importance of group therapeutic relationships in explaining outcome.

Objectives. This study reanalyzed data from Burlingame and colleagues’ (2018) randomized controlled trial on the effect of adding Group Questionnaire (GQ) to Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45) feedback. These data were assessed for the feedback effect using the amount of GQ alerts in one session reported by the group member to track change in GQ subscales as a measure of reversing therapeutic relationship failure.Methods. 374 participants engaged in 58 psychotherapy groups. Every participant provided GQ measurements after every group session. These GQ measurements formed ‘person-session units’ representing whether or not each type of alert was present following each group meeting. Person-session units showing one, two, and three or more GQ alerts were selected for analysis. The GQ subscales of positive bond (PB), positive work (PW), and negative relationship (NR) were tracked over the following two sessions using hierarchical linear models (HLMs) to correct for group membership and analyze slopes of change between GQ feedback and no-feedback conditions.Results. Insignificant results were shown in condition by session interactions for every GQ subscale following every specified amount of co-occurring GQ alerts. These results contrast with Burlingame and colleagues’ (2018) findings that half of all condition by session interactions shown were significant using GQ change and status alerts to trigger analyses.Conclusions. The results of this study do not appear to better discriminate the effect of adding GQ to OQ feedback for group leaders. Thus, it does not appear that group leaders can better reverse the tide of relationship failure in psychotherapy groups when there are specific numbers of GQ alerts presented to them versus the alert types offered in GQ feedback reports.

The Group Questionnaire (GQ) is a 30-item, self-report measure of the group relationship that was developed in the present study. It is based off of Johnson's new three factor model of the group relationship which includes Positive Bonding, Positive Working, and Negative Relationship. This study involved two parts, the creation of the GQ followed by the validation and refinement of the GQ using 486 participants from three populations - outpatient university counseling center, inpatient state hospital, and non-patient AGPA process groups. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test the goodness-of-fit of Johnson's model to each of the populations separately and as a whole. Following the refinement process, results showed the GQ to have good fit to the model for each population. Distinct differences in response pattern were found between the three populations. Reliability estimates were predominantly in the good range. Implications for future utility of the GQ include using it as a clinically relevant and efficient assessment tool to inform clinicians of the quality of the group psychotherapy relationship and to potentially predict group outcome.

The goals of this thesis are: to find out what role do information and communication technologies (ICT) play in learning and students' preparation for school and in what conditions and means are students using ICT for school preparation in non-school settings; and to show the current state of digital technology usage by students for school purposes, but also to hint at the potential challenges in the implementation and usage of information and communication technologies. The theoretical part consists of three aspects; it introduces the terms preparation for school and learning using information and communication technologies; analyzes the current relation of curricular documents to using ICT in schools, and summarizes results from thematically-related research. The research part of this thesis presents the results of the quantitative and qualitative research inquiry into selected high-school students and their teachers/educators. The goal of this inquiry was to determine what methods and in what conditions are students using ICT in their school preparation.