TPC Journal V7, Issue 1-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 1 37 as a consequence of in-class implementation of SSS. Each school identified a contextually appropriate approach to addressing this initial resistance to devoting class time to SSS. In two of the schools, teachers (rather than counselors) delivered the SSS curriculum within their own classrooms. In the other three schools, the SSS curriculum was delivered through learning communities (i.e., advisories), which are existing scheduled blocks of time during which teachers facilitate small groups (8–15 students) outside their normal classrooms. For example, a ninth-grade biology teacher might be responsible for leading a group of students across several grades with whom the teacher does not interact outside of this learning community. The manner in which SSS was delivered in each school is detailed below. School One. The SSS curriculum was not delivered with complete fidelity. Instead, the school leadership determined it was more feasible for teachers to deliver the curriculum through learning communities, once a week for 30 minutes for 10 weeks. School Two. The SSS curriculum was delivered with reasonable fidelity once a week for 60 minutes over a 5-week period by teachers. However, instead of being delivered in a traditional classroom format, the school leadership determined it more feasible to deliver the curriculum through learning communities. School Three. SSS was delivered with reasonable fidelity. Five teachers (trained and supervised by the school counselor) delivered the SSS curriculum in the prescribed format detailed in the SSS classroom manual. The five teachers delivered SSS to all students in the school through various courses, including a study skills course (seventh and eighth grades), a social studies course (ninth grade), a biology course (tenth grade), a college readiness course (eleventh grade) and an English course (twelfth grade). School Four. The SSS curriculum was delivered with reasonable fidelity to all grade levels (sixth through eighth) during social studies courses. The social studies teachers were trained and supervised by the school counselor to deliver the program. School Five. The SSS curriculum was not delivered with complete fidelity. The school leadership determined it more feasible to deliver the curriculum through learning communities two to three times a week for 25 minutes for each session over a 5-week period. Procedures for Collecting SESSS and Jr. MAI Data Pretest data were collected at the beginning of the 2013 school year and posttest data were collected in late April and early May of the 2013–2014 school year, before the end-of-grade standardized testing ensued. Prior to beginning the project, school counselors completed a Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative to alert them to issues relating to voluntary participation and confidentiality. School counselors were then trained to follow an instrument administration manual (developed for the project) so that they could administer the SESSS and the Jr. MAI in a standardized fashion. They administered the SESSS and the Jr. MAI using standardized, scripted procedures. In order to protect the confidentiality of the students, school counselors changed the student identification numbers for each student by adding a randomly determined number for each school. No other person besides the school counselor knew the number by which the student identification numbers were changed. All data were kept in a locked file cabinet in the primary investigator’s office. Data were entered into a database, which was saved on an encrypted, password-protected hard drive. As an additional safeguard, the data from each school were saved on an external hard drive and transported by hand to the primary investigator’s office.