TPC-Journal-V4-Issue5

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 5 534 STAXI-2 C/A contains four scales assessing excessive anger in youths. The four scales are as follows: Anger State (S-Ang), Anger Trait (T-Ang), Anger Control (AC) and Anger Expression (AX). Each of the four scales measures a different indicator of anger, in order to provide counselors with a multifaceted perspective of the client’s anger behavior. Past studies that utilized the STAXI-2 C/A focused on AC and AX because of the strong validity these scales have with other anger assessments (Freeman, 2004); thus, the AC and AX scales were used in this pilot study. Cronbach’s alphas were .92 and .67 for AC and AX respectively (Freeman, 2004). Barrio, Aluja, and Spielberger (2004) stated that Cronbach’s alphas demonstrated by the STAXI-2 C/A indicated a high degree of reliability. Additionally, Barrio et al. (2004) also exhibited high construct validity by correlating the STAXI-2 C/A with the Verbal and Physical Aggressiveness Scale (AFV; Caprara & Pastorelli, 1993). A significant correlation of .43 existed between the two assessments. According to Gladding (2012), numerous counselors fail to measure the successfulness of their groups accurately because of errors in measurement and evaluation. In groups, a large number of therapeutic factors are occurring, which affect members in varying ways (Corey, 2011). Focusing on too many factors can overwhelm counselors and undermine evaluation, which is critically important (Gladding, 2012). In order to avoid this potential problem, this pilot study focused on a limited number of factors. Procedures A large, urban public middle school in a metropolitan area provided the setting and participants for this pilot study. Serving 2,000 students in grades 6–8, the school has a standardized documentation system that keeps track of behavioral disruptions. The documentation system records in-school suspensions (ISS), out-of- school suspensions (OSS) and behavioral infractions for students (Burt, 2010). Each student has a personal identification number; the administration connects student infractions to these numbers in order to identify any student. The documentation system also contains a small description of what caused the issue. For instance, some students have behavioral outbursts of anger, while others have infractions for tardiness. Since the focus of this pilot was to determine anger differences between genders, it was imperative for the study to have participants who displayed excessive anger. To increase validity and correctly identify participants, the author used school administration recommendations. The author conducted interviews with school staff to gather information as suggested by Bryan, Day-Vines, Griffin, and Moore-Thomas (2012). For example, the author asked school deans, teachers and professional school counselors (PSC) for recommendations about students. Many students had a high overall number of OSS and ISS, including a large number of behavioral infractions. However, some infractions were due to nonexcessive anger problems (e.g., tardiness). School staff could provide a safeguard against the author inappropriately recruiting a student who did not truly require services. The author asked school staff if a student’s number of OSS, ISS and infractions corresponded with actual behavior (i.e., excessive anger). Thus, the goal was to eliminate as much bias as possible to ensure the most appropriate candidates. After interviewing school staff, a pool of candidates emerged, consisting of individuals with documentation of excessive anger, fights and legal procedures in the court system (Burt, 2010). School staff considered these candidates to be at high risk for excessive anger, and candidates’ records of OSS, ISS and behavioral infractions corroborated this belief. According to Burt et al. (2013), more than eight occurrences in a 12-week period constitute a high number of anger issues; thus, this study held the same parameters advocated by Burt et al. (2013). Once a list of eligible candidates emerged, the author interviewed school staff a second time. This second short interview was a safeguard measure before actually contacting candidates. The author wanted to meet with school staff again to reduce potential staff bias and ensure that candidates were still having anger issues. After the last interview, school staff explained the study to candidates in detail.