Chapter VIII: The Evaluation of Guidance Services

Abstract

A COMMENT by Dressel (11) about research in college counseling to the effect that little of it appeared to be planned to produce practical counseling implications could be paraphrased to cover evaluation of guidance services. Most of the attempts to evaluate apply only to parts of the total program of guidance services; the experimental designs used rarely have any major features in common.Various criteria for evaluating programs have been proposed. Jensen, Coles, and Nestor (23) attempted to remedy defects mentioned by Dressel by proposing desirable characteristics for the criterion variable, criterion instrument, and criterion scores. This is one step toward a common approach to evaluation. Another step is the proposal by Butler (4) of a system of behavior categories and an experimental design involving factor analysis for comparing trends within and between individuals. Calvin (5) pointed out his dissatisfaction with the experimental design of an evaluation of client-centered counseling in a study by Dymond. He claimed defects in the design obscured the reasons for client change which might therefore be due to passage of time alone. A number of other studies highlighted this last possibility; Eysenck (13) suggested that neurotic persons who do not receive therapy appear, over the course of time, to improve as much as those who do. Coleman (8) described 12 criteria for evaluating guidance services in the elementary school. However, seven of these criteria applied to teachers' knowledge of individual differences and mental hygiene; only five criteria dealt directly with guidance services. This confusion over the definition of guidance was also evidenced in an article by Mennes (33) where the term guidance was used to describe individual attention given by teachers of "multiple period" classes combining world history and English. Guidance as used in this chapter applies to phases of a program requiring special training beyond that of most classroom teachers. The bibliography covers only published articles and does not include unpublished theses such as those listed by Cottle, Callis, and Polmantier (10). Total Programs of Guidance ServicesTurney and Morehead (41) used a fairly complete testing battery to compare an Arkansas high school having a program of guidance services with one where no program existed. While the results were not conclusive regarding the effects of counseling, 4 of 14 analyses of covariance favored the school with a counseling program. Winston (44) used Section G, 229 at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 26, 2015 http://rer.aera.net Downloaded from REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Vol. XXVII, No. 2