A rationale for promoting academic development and learning in middle school students

One of the key developmental domains, outlined for example in the ASCA National Model® (2003) and in Gysbers and Henderson's (2005) comprehensive school counseling program, targets the academic educational growth of students. Throughout the ASCA National Model are phrases that relate to how school counselors can "become catalysts for educational change" (p. 15), "call attention to situations within the schools that … hinder students' academic success" (p. 15), and "[use] effective strategies … to meet stated student success and achievement" (p. 16). In addition, ASCA suggests that "the school counseling program facilitates student development … to promote and enhance student learning" (p. 11). In short, not only does the ASCA National Model include wide-ranging suggestions on how K-12 counselors can encourage academic development and learning, but there are recommendations on how they can close the achievement gap as well.

Furthermore, ASCA, in its school counselor role statement (2004b) and its ethical standards (2004a), indicates that professional school counselors must effectively assist students to realize their academic/educational goals as well as those comprehensive program competencies associated with this developmental domain. In particular, through a CSCP, middle school counselors arc charged with the responsibility to support their school's mission statement and to enhance the learning process and the academic achievement of all students (ASCA, 2005). It bears repeating, however, that while middle school counselors are essential to the academic success of students, they must coordinate activities and collaborate effectively with the larger educational team (Dahir & Stone, 2003; Musheno & Talbert, 2002; Sink, 2005) as well as with caregivers and die community (Bryan, 2005).

Middle school research focusing on academic development and performance

One cornerstone to the success of any school counseling service, activity, or intervention is to verify whether there is a solid research base to support its implementation. Conducting small groups, for instance, with middle school students at risk for academic difficulties is almost certainly a good practice, but often the pertinent literature is largely vague about what works best with these students. Similarly, using classroom guidance as a means to foster academic development has been shown to be largely effective (see Hughes & Karp, 2004; McGannon, Carey, & Dimmitt, 2005; Whiston, 2003; Whiston & Sexton, 1998, for reviews). Unfortunately, most school counseling outcomes research, including those studies conducted within the operational framework of a CSCP, does not specifically focus on middle school students, and at best, educational interventions yield only modest positive indirect effects on academic development outcomes (Brown & Trusty, 2005b; McGannon et al.; Whiston). I summarize below only those empirical studies that possess some generalizability to contemporary middle school counseling and the facilitation of students' academic development and learning.

McGannon et al. (2005) carefully overviewed the current status of K-12 school counseling outcome research in the United States. As a part of their rigorous review, the authors examined the evidence for the link between school counseling activities and increasing student academic achievement. Not surprisingly, very few studies met the NCLB criteria for what is considered to be scientifically based research. Only Brigman and Campbells (2003) study using a pre-posttest control group design with randomization conducted with students in the "middle" grades (i.e., 5, 6, 8, and 9; n_treatment = 97 and n_control = 125) produced clear evidence for the positive impact of group counseling-related interventions on measures of academic achievement. With a curriculum called Academic and Social Support: Student Success Skills (SSS; i.e., academic, social, and self-management skills, including goal setting, progress monitoring, and active learning skills), gains over time in math and reading test scores (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test [FCAT]) and school success behaviors were found for both the treatment and control groups, with the former group significantly outperforming the latter sample on the posttest measures.

Because the effect sizes (ESs) as estimates of the findings' practical significance were not reported in the article, they were computed using Cohen's (1988) d statistic and Brigman's (2005) adjusted posttest means. (Cohen's d was calculated as follows: adjusted posttest M_treatment - adjusted posttest M_control / σ_pooled and σ_pooled = √(σ₁² + σ₂²) / 2], and σ₁¹ is the squared posttest SD of the treatment group and σ₁² is the squared posttest SD of the control group.) In the comparison of the FCAT math and reading means for the treatment and control groups, the d statistics were low-moderate in magnitude, .286 and .298, respectively.

Subsequent to McGannon et al. (2005), two other germane and well-designed investigations were conducted by Campbell and Brigman (2005) and Webb, Brigman, and Campbell (2005). Each one further explored the connection between academic performance and study skills-related group counseling with students approaching middle school age, grades 5 and 6 (Campbell & Brigman, n_treatment = 153 and n_control = 153; Webb et al., n _treatment = 207 and n_control = 211 ). As in the 2003 Brigman and Campbell study, participants in the intervention groups across both studies published in 2005 significantly outperformed students in the control groups on FCAT math. However, for both 2005 studies, after using the Bonferroni correction for possible Type I error, the FCAT reading mean differences between treatment and control groups were nonsignificant (p > .05). In any case, the derived ESs (Cohen's d) using Brigman's (2005) adjusted posttcst means for the FCAT math and FCAT reading were again relatively modest for each investigation, ranging from .166 to .365. Essentially, then, the findings from these three studies conducted by the research team of Brigman and associates further indicate that academic achievement can be, in part, positively altered as a function of group counseling interventions using the SSS curriculum. The application of these results is explored in the next section.

A number of other school counseling studies have been published in the past decade or so that have examined in part interventions and activities related to middle school students' academic development and learning. Gerler and Herndon's (1993) research, for example, lends tepid support for the practice of school counselors teaching a 10-week classroom guidance unit ("Succeeding in School" program) to 104 middle school students (Grades 6-8). Participants in the intervention group showed significantly higher awareness ratings on a "how to succeed in school" attitudinal survey than did the comparison group. Unfortunately, sufficient logistical and curricular details were not included in the study to be fully replicated in other middle school settings.

Related to the above investigation, there is some empirical support from largely survey research that centers in on the usefulness of academic-career counseling and advisement in the middle grades (e.g., Dunham & Frome, 2003; Hughes & Karp, 2004; Mau, 1995; Peterson, Long, & Billups, 1999). Specifically, it appears that, for at least eighth-grade students, more intensive and longterm classroom guidance lessons (e.g., lessons facilitated every day for a week) addressing academic and course planning were more effective than sporadic interventions and activities (Peterson et al.).

Two middle school counseling-related studies conducted nearly a decade apart examined the influence of career interventions on a variety of career, psychosocial, and academic achievement outcomes, with mixed results. To determine the efficacy of a year-long career intervention program ("Career Linking") with a convenience sample of 81 inner-city eighth-grade students, Fouad (1995) integrated a series of 6-week career units into various regular education classrooms (e.g., math and science). As part of a collaborative approach, the middle school counselor worked with various building educators to facilitate the project. Among other findings, over the duration of the study, students in the intervention group significantly outperformed their peers in the comparison sample on various teacher ratings of math and science academic achievement (student grades on classroom tests and homework) and educational effort (teacher ratings of student effort in class, as well as student attendance, class participation, extra credit work, and on-task classroom behavior).

A relatively similar career education study with 57 at-risk sixth- and seventh-grade middle school students conducted over 9 weeks yielded largely nonsignificant results for each of the outcomes assessed, including weak improvement in academic performance as measured by GPA for both the intervention and control groups (Legum & Hoare, 2004).

Because some younger adolescents show signs of wanting to quit school early (Hayes, Nelson, Tabin, Pearson, & Worthy, 2002), middle school counselors have directed their systemic interventions, such as dropout and school failure prevention activities, to assist this student group. Edmondson and White (1998) provided indirect evidence that middle school counselors, through their group counseling, coordination, and consultation activities along with an academic tutoring program, could impact positively the GPA of 135 European American students in families with low socioeconomic status and who were also at risk for dropping out of school. Presumably, the efficacy of the intervention was largely due to the intensive academic tutoring, rather than any direct intervention on the counselors' part.

These findings appeared to be partially replicated in a smaller, unpublished study with Indo-American middle school students, in which all participants academically benefited from various counseling interventions conducted within the milieu of an afterschool tutorial program (Vargis, 2002). Similarly, positive evaluation data (57% of 35 at-risk seventh and eighth graders had higher GPAs) emerged from a middle school program ("Solution Shop"; Cook & Kaffenberger, 2003) focusing on helping students improve their grades and perceptions about their academic performances through educational goal setting, tutoring, study skills instruction, progress monitoring, and ongoing collaboration among the school counselor, teachers, and caregivers.

Lapan, Gysbers, and Petroski's (2001) statewide investigation using survey data from Grade 7 students and teachers in 184 Missouri middle schools explored the potential linkages between teachers' ratings of their schools' comprehensive guidance program activities and students' perceptions of various psychosocial and educational success outcomes. After various school-level differences were controlled for, students in buildings with more fully implemented comprehensive programs reported positive outcomes connected to their academic development. Primarily, students (a) viewed their education as more relevant, (b) indicated more satisfaction with the quality of their educational experiences, and (c) reported that they achieved higher class grades.

Subsequently, Fitch and Marshall's (2004) survey research in Kentucky examined the most salient roles of school counselors in high-achieving schools. Of the 62 K-12 school counselors surveyed, middle school counselors made up about 20% of the entire sample. While the data were not analyzed by grade level and there was little, if any, attempt to match schools on a socioeconomic variable, die results are nonetheless informative. First, counselors in high-achieving schools tended to do significantly more program management, evaluation, and research tasks than their peers in low-achieving schools. second, it appears that counselors in these former schools paid significantly more attention to maintaining professional standards (e.g., aligning their programs to national school counseling standards). Third, coordination activities received more attention in high-achieving schools than in schools with lower-performing students.

Research summary

Taken in its entirety, the research literature reviewed above yielded promising results. Middle school counselors can influence academic development and performance, but their impact is largely secondary or tertiary to other educational activities occurring in the schools. In other words, rather than having an immediate effect on academic outcomes, middle school counselors, like middle school reform in general, essentially have an intermediate effect, whereby "intermediate outcomes have a more immediate impact on student learning" (Brown et al., 2004, p. 432). As such, counselors need to realize that conducting ongoing guidance lessons-for example, on educational planning-will not directly produce measurable gains on a particular classroom mathematics test; nonetheless, these instructional activities should immediately enhance the learning skills needed to master the subject matter explored in different classrooms.

In an adaption of a well-recognized conceptual framework used to analyze the wider effects of middle school reform on student achievement in high versus low-performing schools, Table 1 presents a summary of the key findings from the aforementioned research literature (see Brown et al., 2004, for details on the framework and this research). Interestingly, the majority of middle school counseling studies reviewed above included strategic elements present in high-achieving middle schools. That is, higher-achieving schools appeared to demonstrate a strong academic ethos; emphasized collegiality and affiliation among faculty, staff, and administration; and were committed to instructional leadership (Brown et al.). Moreover, many of the school counseling activities and interventions reported in Table 1 reflect those suggested by McElroy (2000) in an article on "what works" in middle schools (e.g., helping early adolescents develop transition skills, assisting students with course and career planning, as well as conducting parent-teacher-student meetings and conferences, mentoring programs, and tutoring programs).

Table 1 also shows that the most important middle school counselor functions used to advance student academic development, learning, and performance included activities, interventions, and/or services that were either systemic (whole school, district-wide, or state-wide CSCPs), direct (immediate impact on academically related outcomes), or indirect (intermediate influence on academically related outcomes) in nature. On the systemic level, middle school students will benefit by counselors redoubling their efforts to implement an educationally focused comprehensive school counseling program similar to the ASCA National Model (2003) or Missouri's program (Gysbers & Henderson, 2005). More effective programs may include not only the major characteristics of higher-achieving middle schools summarized above (see also Bennett et al., 2004), but also the five "Cs" inherent to professional school counseling (i.e., collaboration, coordination, consultation, individual and group counseling, and classroom guidance), especially as they coincide with academic development and learning (ASCA, 2003).

Implications and recommendations for middle school counseling

Because the school counseling research literature in the academic domain remains in its infancy, specific empirically based research recommendations for practice at die building level must be cautiously introduced. By selectively targeting classroom guidance (school guidance curricula) and small group counseling (responsive services), activities to enhance student learning can ultimately contribute to higher academic achievement. Middle school counselors ought to focus on educating students in critical academic-educational skill areas (Lapan, Kardash, & Turner, 2002; NMSA Research Committee, 2003; Paisley & Hayes, 2003), as they also consider those organizational learning structures (e.g., advisory programs, interdisciplinary educational teaming, safe and caring classrooms and schools) essential to a successful overall educational experience (NMSA, 2003; NMSA Research Committee, 2003).

First, lessons and activities should emphasize the advancement of student cognition and mctacognition. In particular, conduct large and small group interventions that will help students develop their ability to self-regulate (i.e., self-management and self-monitoring) their learning (Rudolph, Lambert, Clark, & Kurlakowsky, 2001 ). For instance, students will benefit from learning how to effectively attend and use memory strategies, seek information, plan, and organize their learning activities and studying (Lapan et al., 2002). Practically speaking, as students learn these relevant self-regulatory skills, they are able to arrest a potentially dysfunctional pattern of school and personal-social behavior emerging in late elementary school and escalating in middle school.

Table 1. Summary of Helpful Middle School Counseling Interventions and Their Immediate and Intermediate Effects on Student Achievement
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By failing to incorporate these skills, middle school students are at risk of an unsuccessful transition through adolescence and into early adulthood (Rudolph et al.). Similarly, students may find it difficult to maintain sufficient motivation to keep focused on school achievement (Wigfield & Eccles, 2002). Clearly, a healthy identity formation is threatened as well. In other words, without the ability to self-regulate their own learning, early adolescents tend to develop maladaptive academic-related self-regulatory beliefs (e.g., "I have no control over my own learning," "This stuff I am learning isn't important"), which over time leads to academic disengagement (e.g., feelings of academic helplessness, minimal effort on academic tasks, and, ultimately, low academic performance). Of course, this poor transition is accompanied by school-related stress, as well as psychosocial concerns such as depression and anxiety (Rudolph et al.).

Second, as middle school counselors attend to students' self-regulatory skills, they also should encourage healthy psychosocial development. Evidence supports classroom guidance and small groups centering in on the growth and maintenance of key prosocial and interpersonal skills that undergird academic development and learning (e.g., Lapan, 2005; Maehr & Anderman, 1993; McGannon et al., 2005; NMSA, 2003; NMSA Research Committee, 2003; Sears, 2005; Webb et al., 2005; Whiston, 2003). These counselor-directed activities should include topics associated with enhancing achievement motivation, self-efficacy, social problem solving, listening, teamwork, positive learning attitudes, and classroom climate.

However, it is important, as mentioned above, to partner with teachers to facilitate the development of these skills. Interdisciplinary approaches to curriculum development and team-teaching seem to be effective in middle schools (NMSA; NMSA Research Committee). Therefore, middle school counselors and teachers should co-plan and co-instruct relevant and challenging academic subjects that also possess lesson components focusing on psychosocial skills. As teachers stress the academic content of the lesson, school counselors can focus on those vital personal-social skills (e.g., assertiveness, collaboration and cooperation, empathy, appreciating individual differences, leadership, listening to others) needed for learning die material in the class and elsewhere.

Finally, coupled with the self-regulatory and psychosocial skill areas, research indicates that middle school counselors should augment the work of teachers by focusing their comprehensive counseling activities, interventions, and services directly on enhancing students' academic and learning skills and their motivation to learn (Brown & Trusty, 2005a; Cook & Kaffenbcrger, 2003; Dunham & Frome, 2003; Hughes & Karp, 2004; Wigfkld & Eccles, 2002). Bransford, Brown, and Cockings' (1999) extensive book documenting how students best learn is an excellent research-based resource to consult. Subsequently, key areas to explore with early adolescents are study and test-taking strategy instruction and career and educational planning (e.g., development of a course of study).

Counselors also can help facilitate one-to-one and small group academic tutoring programs. Student Success Skills (Brigman & Campbell, 2003; Brigman, Campbell, & Webb, 2004; Brigman & Webb, 2004; Campbell & Brigman, 2005; Webb et al., 2005) and Solution Shop (Cook & Kaffenberger, 2003) are useful research-based curricula. These resources include lessons that develop and build on the foundational educational skills underpinning academic performance (for sample resources, lessons, and activities, see also, e.g., Brown, 1999; Naglieri & Pickering, 2003). Hopefully, in the near future, other relevant middle school counseling curricula will be developed, rigorously examined, and disseminated (Rowley, Stroh, & Sink, 2005).

Closing remarks

Middle school counselors are strong advocates for the academic development of all students and for narrowing the differences in academic performance among disparate student groups (ASCA, 2003; Mau, 1995; Wenglinsky, 2004). There is little doubt that counselors at this level contribute to the academic growth of their students. The research, however, is equivocal on whether these professionals are directly influencing academic outcomes through their work within comprehensive programs and by their educationally focused activities and interventions. Through active collaboration with all educators, middle school counselors should continue to adopt a systemic orientation to fostering academic development and learning.

Counselors must no longer operate from the educational sidelines; instead, they need to assume leadership in this area, first by assisting with school reform in their buildings and districts, second by promoting those educational activities that maximize student learning, and finally, by evaluating relevant outcomes. More specifically, middle school counselors must move to the educational forefront, helping to assess student mastery of academic competencies and aspects of their programs that are linked with academic development and learning. There should be a concerted effort to understand which dimensions require further attention and refinement. This is a tall order, but if middle school counselors are to meet the educational needs of all students, they must continue to rise to the challenge.

Reprinted with permission from American School Counselor Association