An exploration of health counseling and goal attainment scaling in health education programs

This paper presents findings of an experimental study to test the effects of health counseling with seventh and eighth grade students (N = 32). Goal attainment scaling was used to monitor changes in health behavior during a 10-week period with each student meeting with a health counselor five times during the study. A pretest/posttest, repeated measures design with experimental and control groups was used to evaluate the influence of health counseling. The results revealed a significant increase in goal attainment scaling scores (F = 4.96). Health behaviors influenced were exercise and nutrition. There also was a significant increase in self-esteem (F = 8.42) and home-esteem (F = 4.24). The utilization of health counseling appears to be an attractive educational strategy to enhance the effectiveness of classroom instruction.