The effects of group counseling on self-concept of hearing impaired students

Includes bibliographical references (pages 37-38)The problem that this paper addresses is how group counseling affects the self-concept of hearing impaired college students. To determine this, two groups were used: an experimental group of fifteen-hearing impaired students at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) who were participating in a semester-long personal growth group; and a control group of thirty hearing impaired students, also from CSUN. No one in the control group had ever had previous group counseling experience. The Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS) was administered to both groups at the beginning and the end of the semester. A t-test was run on the gain scores of the two groups for the following sub-scales of the TSCS: identity, satisfaction/acceptance, behavior, physical self, moral/ethical self, personal self, family self, social self, and total positive score.\ud The results of the research showed that the experimental group produced higher gain scores in each of the nine sub-scales, giving evidence to the improved self-concept of that group following a semester of group counseling. In addition, the t-test of the individual sub-scales showed a significant difference in the area of ???personal self,??? indicating that the group had been successful in its goal to stimulate personal growth