Counseling with Elementary School Children: An Experimental Study

An attempt was made to assess results of counseling with fourth‐grade students, using sociometric status as the criterion. A sociometric device was administered to four fourth‐grade classrooms. Students of low sociometric status were randomly assigned by classrooms to one of three treatment conditions: (1) counseling, (2) teacher guidance, and (3) control. When treatment conditions were compared, the evidence seemed to indicate significant differences in the relative frequency with which subjects increased or decreased in sociometric status, that the differences favored the counseling condition, and that these differences persisted over a period of seven months. The possibility of a temporary teacher influence on the sociometric criterion was indicated.