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ABSTRACT DEVELOPING A PEER HELPING PROGRAM AND TESTING ITS EFFECTIVENESS Aladag, Mine Ph. D., Educational Sciences Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Esin Tezer 2005, 290 pages The main purpose of this three-phase study was to develop a peer helping program. The purpose of the first phase was to plan a peer helping program with its goal and content. The purpose of the second phase was to develop a peer helping training program and to investigate its effectiveness on improving the helping skills and self-growth of the peer helpers. The purpose of the third phase was to understand the peer helpers&rsquo / and helpees&rsquo / evaluations of the peer helping program. In the first phase of the study, a need assessment study was carried out with a sample of 316 (168 females, 148 males) students from Faculty of Education of Ege University. Results indicated that students preferred peer helpers among other helping agents / they preferred both non-directive helping styles (empathic responses) and directive helping styles (instrumental responses) / they seemed to believe the helpfulness of the program / they tended to apply to the program / and they wanted the program to concentrate on their career, academic, and interpersonal relationships concerns. In the second phase of the study, in order to investigate the effect of peer helping training program on improving peer helpers&rsquo / helping skills and the self-growth, a pre-test post-test control group experimental design study was carried out with a sample of 31 participants (15 experimental group and 16 control group). The participants were also administered six-month follow-up test. The data were gathered by administering five instruments: Communication Skills Evaluation Scale (CSES), Empathic Skill Scale-B Form (ESS-B), Reflection Skills Evaluation Form (RSEF), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSS) and Self-Acceptance Inventory (SAI). After testing the equivalence of the pre-test scores of CSES, ESS-B, RSS, and SAI of the experimental and the control group participants, a series of 2 (experimental-control groups) X 3 (pre-post-follow up tests) repeated measure of analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to the CSES, ESS-B, RSS, and SAI scores of the participants. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using pre-test as covariate was employed to the post-test and follow-up test scores of the RSEF of the participants. The results indicated that a peer helping training program was more effective on improving both the empathic and the reflection skills of the experimental group participants as compared to the control group participants. The results also indicated that there was a significant increase in the experimental group participants&rsquo / self-esteem scores from the pre-test to the follow-up test and also a significant increase in the experimental group participants&rsquo / self-acceptance scores from the pretest to the posttest. In the third phase of the research, a study, mainly based on qualitative data, was carried out with 15 peer helpers and 33 volunteered students/peer helpees (17 females, 16 males) who received peer helping services. All peer helpees were administered Peer Helping Service Evaluation Form and 15 peer helpers were also administered Peer Helping Program Evaluation Form. The analysis of the qualitative data indicated that most of the above mentioned areas were positively evaluated by both peer helpers and peer helpees.