Effectiveness of Group Counseling with Solution Focused ( Brief ) Therapy ( SFBT ) on Increasing Self-Efficacy of Fifth Grade Primary School Female Students

The present study is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of group counseling with solution focused (brief) therapy (SFBT) on increasing self-efficacy of fifth grade primary school female students. Therefore, from among 88 fifth grade primary school female students, 16 individuals who had achieved the lowest scores in the pretest were selected and then divided into two 8 participant groups. SFBT was performed in five session for the experimental group and the second group received no educational and therapeutic intervention during these sessions. Regarding the obtained results, the research hypothesis was confirmed at the significance level p>0.01. These results indicate that using SFBT, primary school students’ self-efficacy can be improved.


Introduction
Adolescence is a sensitive period in the life of each person and it can be called the critical period.This period of life is with severe emotions, sense of uncertainty, incompatibility and aggression.In this period, the society demands adolescents to be independent and change their relations with adults and achieve compatibility and job preparedness (Bernard, 2010), while adolescents are mostly sullen, cynical, short-tempered, and aggressive.
In fact, this period can be considered as the period of conflicts because adolescents exerts efforts for intimacy, but they fear from intimacy and mostly avoid it and violate against control, while they need guidance and organization, they usually are autonomous and shy and are involved with their world mentally.In such conditions, adolescents severely feel instability and uncertainty which are stressful and anxious for them (Curie, 2014).
On the other hand, this wide range of changes and transformations and achievement of appropriate strategies for adolescents are very important, and shortage in this regard can have damaging consequences such as abnormalities, insecurity, personality and emotional problems, and behavioral and criminal behaviors (Nina et al. 2011).One of the cases taken from Bandura's leaning theory is self-Efficacy.This basic construct is related to individuals' judgment about their own abilities in doing tasks or compatibility with a particular situation (Parvin, 2005).As Bandura believes, self-efficacy is a constructive ability via which cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral skills of human beings are effectively organized for realizing different aims.Therefore, main component of his approach is self-efficacy (Shultz and Shultz, 2008).inthis theory, environmental factors and cognitive processes are effective on human behaviors and these cognitive processes cause the formation of individuals' perceptions and expectations of self-efficacy (Pachariz, 2002as cited in Ghanbari et al. 2015).It is mostly a sense of autonomy and skills in the environment (Murphy and Murphy, 2006) which provides individuals' practical confidence for successful conduction a task (Hammond, 2005).
Moreover, Bandura believes that beliefs of self-efficacy is founded on individuals' perception of their own performance (Kurt et al. 2011) and results in the formation of senses of efficiency, adequacy, and adaptability with life.These perceptions of self-efficacy result in the formation of one of the unique abilities in human beings which is changed or assessed by them.Therefore, if self-efficacy perceptions are controlled, the occurrence of appropriate functional behaviors will be expected in these individuals (Pachariz, 2003).Assessments obtained from this performance have effects on a lot of aspects of life such as aims, decision making, the degree of exerting efforts for doing tasks, perseverance in facing challenges, both positive and negative patterns of thinking and generally to behave, and thinking and feeling (Hejazi et al. 2007).
In this regard, Chen (2005) investigated the effectiveness of Group Counseling with Solution focused (brief) Therapy on art students with low self-concept.Their results indicated that this method is significantly effective on students' self-concept.Results obtained from Younesi et al. (2014) indicated the effect of Group Counseling with Solution focused (brief) Therapy on increasing self-efficacy and adaptability of male high school students.Another research indicated that this method has significant effects on male high school students' self-esteem, self-perception, and self-accountability (Jokar et al. 2012).In addition, there is a power relationship between self-efficacy and emotional intelligence.A lot of researchers believe that high emotional intelligence has relationship with better performance in self-regulation, representation of independence, sympathy with others, self-control, optimism, and self-efficacy (William et al. 2008;Beverly et al. 2008).Investigations of Rahi and Rastochi (2008) indicated that emotional intelligence has a positive relationship with self-efficacy.Therefore, regarding the role and significance of self-efficacy (individuals' efficacy) sense of competence, efficiency and coping with life, the present study is to answer this question that whether Group Counseling with Solution Focused (brief) Therapy is effective on primary school female students?

Methods
In the present study, the quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and control group was used.To conduct this study, from among 88 fifth grade primary school students, 16 individuals who had achieved the lowest scores in the pretest were selected and then divided into two 8 participant groups.SFBT was performed in five session for the experimental group and the second group received no educational and therapeutic intervention during these sessions.Each session last averagely about 75 min.the content and aim of each session are summarily as follows: First session: to familiarize the members of the group with each other Second session: Aim: to help in targeting and concentrating aims.
Task: to apply the best strategies and trained methods.Aim: to summarize and answer questions Task: A short presentation of previous sessions and solutions used by group members, presenting 16 questions of miracle for each of the members (the assumption of occurring miracle and solving problems and expressing changes as well as senses caused by it), giving positive feedback of members to each other, investigating their own advancement in academic affairs, social proficiency, and controlling negative emotions.

Research Instrument
The instrument for collecting data is SEQ-C.This questionnaire was developed by Morris (2002) for assessing children's and adolescents' self-efficacy in four social, academic, emotional, and general fields.It includes 23 items and is based on the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire developed by Bandura et al. (1996).
Conducting and scoring of the test is in such a way that each item is evaluated in a five-point scale including 1 (never) to 5 (very high).In conducting this test, subjects are asked to select one of the options according to their own abilities in doing the task.Then, with the sum of the value of selecting each item for each subject, four scores are calculated.In the present study, only the total score of self-efficacy is used.For the general effectiveness, the score range is from 23 to 115.The reliability of this test in general self-efficacy is 89% and its validity is 73%.Normalization of the test was conducted by Tahmasian (2005) in Iran.

Descriptive analysis of self-efficacy between experimental and control group
The dependent variable of the research is sense of self-efficacy consisting of three components of competence, respect and perseverance, and assertiveness.Each student of the sample has two values from pretest and posttest which are at two control and experimental groups.The data collected form the sense of self-efficacy were investigated by considering the period of the test and groups with measures of central tendency and dispersion.As follows, descriptive analyses of these variables are presented.
The results of statistical indices in pretest for self-efficacy and its components in the two experimental and control groups are presented in table 1 and chart 1

Inferential Analysis
With regard that the aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of intervention of Group Counseling with Solution focused (brief) Therapy (SFBT) on the sense of self-efficacy and its components including competence, respect and perseverance, and assertiveness, with the pretest-posttest design and control and experimental groups, therefore, for investigating the results of this intervention, ANCOVA was used.
Investigating basic assumptions of the test: temporal distribution normality is important when the sample size is low.Distribution of values in pretest and posttest of dependent variable and its components in the two groups is investigated with Kolmogorov -Smirnov Test.The significance level calculated for all variables in groups was bigger than 0.05 supporting their normal distributions.Another assumption of ANCOVA is homogeneity of the variance of the dependent variable in the compared groups.Variance homogeneity was investigated with Levine's test and its significant level was bigger than 0.05 supporting the homogeneity of variances in the posttest of the research variables in the experimental and control groups.The results of distribution normality of the research variables are indicated in table 2, and homogeneity of variances in the posttest for the dependent variable is indicated in table 3. Therefore, Group Counseling with Solution Focused (brief) Therapy (SFBT) results in increasing self-efficacy and its components: competence, respect and perseverance, and assertiveness in female students.The results of table 4 indicate that significance levels of all tests confirms the use of MANCOVA.These results also indicate that in the groups, there is differences at least in terms of one of the dependent variables.The eta square indicates that the difference between the two groups is generally significant regarding dependent variables.The magnitude of this difference is 77.4%.That is 77.4% of the variance related to the difference between the two groups is because of the mutual effects of dependent variables.Regarding the data in the above table, because the f-value with df as 1 and 15 are significant in competence components (F=4.997,P=0.044), respect and perseverance (F=5.464,P=0.036), assertiveness (F=8.973,P=0.010) and the total number of self-efficacy (F=8.551,P=0.001) at the significance level α=0.05;therefore, it can be conclude that Group Counseling with Solution Focused (brief) Therapy (SFBT) results in increasing self-efficacy and its components: competence, respect and perseverance, and assertiveness in female students.In addition, the eta value indicates that the effect of Group Counseling with Solution Focused (brief) Therapy (SFBT) resulting in increasing self-efficacy and its components: competence, respect and perseverance, and assertiveness in female students is from 27% to 40%.Therefore, the research hypothesis is confirmed with 95% of confidence.

Discussion and Conclusion
The present study was conducted with the aim of effectiveness of group counseling with solution focused (brief) therapy (SFBT) on increasing self-efficacy of fifth grade primary school female students.The results obtained from investigating the hypothesis at the level p>0.01 was confirmed.These results indicated that this treatment method can increase self-efficacy in primary school students.The results obtained from the present study in terms of the effectiveness of SFBT are consistent with the results of Jess and Franklin (2009) who used this method for students with negative self-percept and problems in managing behaviors.The results also are consistent with findings of Chen (2005) investigating the effect of this method on self-percept of students in academies of Taiwan.Findings also are consistent with Dezhbakhsh (2010) conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of this treatment method on changing satisfaction with life and sense of self-efficacy of couples referring to the counseling center of Boushehr Township.
Regarding the fact that researches conducted in Iran mostly investigated the effect of SFBT in family relations and the reduction of job stress among adolescents and the youth, and none of them have studied the effect this method in relation with children, and also the present research has been conducted about enhancing the sense of social self-efficacy with regard to children and adolescents' needs to assertiveness and communication skills is very low in Iran, the present study has considered solution-focused concepts in a new domain because this approach emphasizes on abilities due to short-term session and relies on partial changes as main factors for greater changes.
Third session: Aim: to change behavioral patterns resulting from the lack of control over negative emotions Task: The use of solutions presented in the Group to control negative emotions Fourth session: Aim: Disruption of behavioral patterns resulting from the lack of social competence Task: to practice bravely behaviors Fifth session: .

Table 2 .
The results of distribution normality of the research variables

Table 3 .
Homogeneity of variances in the posttest for the dependent variable

Table 4 .
The results of MANCOVA in the two groups

Table 5 .
A summary of results of MANCOVA in investigating the effect of cognitive rehabilitation of executive functions on improving selective attention of adolescents cured from leukemia