The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of group counseling on the connotative meanings of "father", "mother", "myself", and "peers" held by adolescent delinquent girls in a state training, school. The research hypothesis of the study was that the connotative meanings of these four concepts expressed by girls who participated in short-term group counseling would become more positive than those who did not.Subjects for the study were inmates at the Indiana Girls School at Clermont, Indiana.. They were selected for the study on the basis of counselor recommendations, reading ability, and proximity to possible parole. Forty-eight subjects participated in the study.A list of variables such as persons, situations, and social institutions was compiled. Juvenile delinquents, as a group, tend to hold negative attitudes toward these variables. This list was reduced to the four most critical concepts selected by the raters: "father", "mother", "myself". and "peers".A semantic differential, constructed as prescribed by Osgood et al. (1957, p. 77-81), was used to measure the connotative meanings of the control and experimental groups toward the four derived concepts.The forty-eight subjects were randomly placed in either the control group or the experimental group. The experimental group was further divided into four subgroups, each with six members.The twenty-four subjects in thee experimental group participated in a one and one-half to two hour group counseling session per week for a period of eleven weeks. The control group experienced the same institutional environment except that they did not receive group counseling. Two of the groups were led by the female staff psychologist of the Indiana Girls School and two of the groups were led by a male doctoral intern from Ball State University. At the end of eleven weeks, the semantic differential was-again administered to the control group and the experimental group.A mean of each of the four-concepts was computed for each subject in the study and group means for the experimental group and the control group were calculated for each of the four concepts on the pre-test and post-test administrations. Significance of the difference of the differences between the experimental and the control groups from pre-test to post-test was determined by a two-tailed t-test. The degree of significance was established at the .05 level.Analysis of the data indicated that the experimental group, when compared to the control group, made significant positive changes in their connotative meanings of father, mother, myself, and peers. The null-hypothesis was rejected since the derived t-values exceeded the critical point at the .001 level. It may be concluded that group counseling had a positive effect on negative feelings and attitudes which are considered by penal authorities to impede treatment and rehabilitation.As a group, the control subjects tended to score lower on the research instrument. Their connotativee meanings of mother, myself, and peers, respectively, were slightly more negative at the conclusion of the experiment. Only "father" was seen as slightly more positive. It appears that the general institutional environment has some negative effects, over a period of time, on the attitudes of the incarcerated girls.The results of this study indicated several areas that are worthy of further exploration.Replication in other types of penal institutions to ascertain the effectiveness. of group counseling.Follow-up of the experimental group to determine the permanence of the changes effected by group counseling.Follow-up after parole to determine if positive changes are related to better post-institutional adjustment.The differences between the attitudes of Negro and Caucasian delinquent girls.The feelings of delinquent girls toward other concepts that were highly ranked by the raters, e.g., home, school, work, and marriage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/179960 |
| Date | January 1970 |
| Creators | Redfering, David L. |
| Contributors | Hayes, Robert E. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 77 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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