In the research conducted by Whiston et al. (2008), entitled “School Counseling Outcome: A Meta-Analytic Examination of Interventions” there is a quantitative analysis approach to determine the extent to which interventions (through school counseling) can assist students. The rationale behind the research is to “address the gap in school counseling research by quantitatively examining studies of school counseling interventions using meta-analytic techniques” by expanding “on previous research by examining moderator variables that may influence effect size” (p. 38). As the authors indicate, previous reviews have been primarily qualitative and far too general.
The greatest strengths of this research article include the ability to effectively ‘fill the gap’ in current research methods and to quantitatively analyze the data, with respect to whether or not school counseling interventions provide assistance to students. They very carefully detail the method of selecting which studies to review, including how the data was analyzed. Further, they detail variations in effect sizes, with respect to grade level and domain of intervention (i.e. elementary, middle/junior high school, high school). The greatest weakness is best described by the authors, themselves, “it is difficult to determine what is effective because it is difficult to ascertain what intervention was precisely implemented with students” (Whiston et al., 2008, p. 47).
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"School Counseling Outcome: A Meta-Analytic Examination of Interventions".
The summary of this research outcome is quite similar to other researchers’ results, in that interventions do not significantly increase students’ self-esteem, and have a small but significant influence on GPA and achievement tests, although it may be unrealistic to assume counselors may have “a substantial and direct impact on individual students’ achievement given the magnitude of the student-to-counselor ratio” (Whiston et al., 2008, p. 48).
The methods of applying this research to practice would be to significantly reduce the amount of students a counselor meets with, in order to increase the effectiveness of the results. Further, it would also be useful to present these findings (and other, similar research findings) indicating the increase in academic performance, as well as other benefits to students, as a justification to not only sustain counseling interventions, but to expand them.
Although there has been a great deal of qualitative research, this specific article focused on a study that conducted quantitative research, allowing for a more results-driven method, which could be helpful in discussing ‘cold, hard facts’ with school administrators and budget proponents.
- Whiston, S. C., Wendi Lee, T., Rahardja, D., & Eder, K. (2011). School counseling outcome: a meta-analytic examination of interventions. Journal of Counseling & Development, 89(1), 37-55.
