Small groups

The focus of this study is to add to the outcome research on effective school
counseling interventions and to specifically evaluate the effectiveness of the Student
Success Skills (SSS) small group intervention with students identified as having drop out
potential in the 9th grade. This study analyzed two years of pre-existing, non-identifiable
student data (N = 167) collected by school counselors at one high school in South
Florida. An Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to determine differences in
academic grades, standardized test scores, and absences between the students who did
participate in the SSS small group intervention when compared to those students who did
not participate. Statistically significant differences were found between groups in all
three dropout potential factors (GPA, test scores, and absences) supporting the use of SSS
small group school counseling intervention with students at risk for dropping out. Effect
size estimates were reported for each of the measures.

Testing a new theory of dynamic social influence, 39 mock juries in two studies deliberated student honor court cases by electronic mail. After reading about each case, participants sent and received messages to a spatially coherent or random subset of jurors on each of five sessions. Individuals appeared to take their role of juror seriously and were responsive to each others' arguments; one-third changed their verdicts after receiving two out of two opposing messages and just over half changed in the face of four of four opposing messages. Polarization toward the majority verdict was common in both studies; however, consistent with a key prediction of dynamic social impact theory, unanimity was suppressed among the spatial compared to random juries by the emergence of spatially distinct subgroups. Clustering and polarization were prevalent even among juries passing as few as two messages per juror each round, providing strong evidence that DSIT applies even to important issues.