| The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effects of two types of group counseling, Cognitive Didactic and Gestalt Psychodrama, for stress of counselor trainees. The study included a total of 39 counselor trainees from two sections of a Group Participation class at one urban university. The counselor trainees were randomly assigned to the two types of group counseling, and attended eight, weekly, one and one-half hour, group sessions.; Two instruments were administered as pretest and posttest measures, the Global Inventory of Stress (GIS22-C, Sheridan, 1987), and Self-Efficacy Scale (SES, Sherer, Maddux, Mercadante, Prentice-Dunn, Jacobs & Rogers, 1982). To determine if the treatment groups were statistically equivalent on the constructs considered in the study, prior to starting group counseling, t-tests for independent samples analyses were conducted on the pretest measures of stress and self-efficacy. Testing revealed no statistical difference between the groups. Results from pretest and posttest measures were analyzed, individually for each type of group counseling, using t-tests for paired samples to test for statistical difference from pretest to posttest, on stress and self-efficacy scores, within the groups. There was no statistical significance at an ∝ level of .05 for the within groups testing. Then results from Cognitive Didactic and Gestalt Psychodrama counseling groups were statistically analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to determine if there were statistically significant differences between the two groups on stress and self-efficacy. There was no statistical significance at an ∝ level of .05 for the between groups testing.; Despite the lack of any statistically significant findings, this study does present an empirical foundation for further research on an issue that has important implications for counselor training and clinical practice. |
