Going for the Goal (GOAL)

OVERVIEW

Going for the Goal (GOAL) is a school-based life-skills program for at-risk, urban middle school students that focuses on setting positive and reachable goals, anticipating and responding to obstacles, using social support, and building on one’s strengths. The program uses ten workshops where high school students teach middle school students goal-setting, problem-solving, and accessing social support. An experimental evaluation found the program had a positive impact on knowledge of goal-setting skills and on goal attainment, but there was no lasting impact on sense of personal control.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: At-risk, urban middle school students

GOAL is designed to promote students’ positive mental health through teaching life-skills and emphasizing social competence and efficacy. Specifically, adolescents are taught how to set goals, problem solve, and access social support. The program takes a positive approach, telling adolescents what they should do, rather than what they should not do. Ten weekly workshops are led by high school students using a manual.  Student leaders are trained at a two-day retreat prior to implementation. The first workshop encourages participants to “dream” and identify  those dreams. The second focuses on how to convert dreams into goals that are under the participants’ control. The third workshop involves setting realistic goals that the adolescents can reach during the course of the program. The fourth workshop presents the concept of a “goal ladder,” which depicts taking steps to reach a goal. In the fifth session the adolescents discuss obstacles to attaining goals, and in the sixth session the leaders teach a strategy for dealing with obstacles. The seventh session stresses the importance of asking for help. The eighth session focuses on rebounding from obstacles and thinking of alternative strategies. In the ninth session adolescents identify strengths and learn how to apply them to achieving their goals. The tenth session consists of a wrap-up of the program, including discussion of how the participants applied what they learned to achieve goals in their lives.

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM

O’Hearn, T.C., & Gatz, M. (1999). Evaluating a psychosocial competence program for urban adolescents. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 20, 119-144.

Evaluated population: A total of 350 seventh-grade students from two middle schools were evaluated. The middle schools were located in an urban community near downtown Los Angeles, in a district where 50 percent of the students come from families below the poverty level. The sample was 92 percent Latino, 7 percent Asian, and 1 percent Caucasian. The sample was 56 percent male and 44 percent female.

Approach: Classrooms were randomly assigned to the intervention or a waitlist control group. Data were collected at pre-test and post-test on knowledge of goal-setting skills, sense of personal control, and goal attainment. Only the experimental group completed the measure of goal attainment. The measures of knowledge of goal-setting skills and sense of personal control were also measured at follow-up approximately 10 weeks after the post-test, but the experimental and control groups could not be compared at follow-up, because the control group had already received the intervention at that point. There was no difference at baseline between the experimental and control groups on knowledge of goal- setting skills or sense of personal control.   

Results: There was a positive impact on knowledge of goal-setting skills, with the experimental group improving significantly more than the control group. There was no program impact on sense of personal control, although both groups improved between baseline and post-test. There was a significant improvement in goal attainment for the experimental group, but this could not be compared with the control group since the control group did not complete the measure. Analysis of data for the experimental group from baseline through follow-up indicated that participants significantly improved on knowledge of goal setting skills from baseline to post-test and maintained those gains through follow-up. The experimental group also increased their sense of personal control between baseline and post-test, but this change was partially reversed and was no longer significant by follow-up.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

 O’Hearn, T.C., & Gatz, M. (1999). Evaluating a psychosocial competence program for urban adolescents. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 20, 119-144.

Website: http://www.lifeskills.vcu.edu/goal.html

Contact Information

Life Skills Center

800 W. Franklin Street

Richmond, VA 23284

lifeskills@vcu.edu

1-888-572-1572

KEYWORDS: Adolescents (12-17), Middle School, Males and Females, High-Risk, Hispanic/Latino, Urban, School-based, Manual, Skills Training, Social Skills/Life Skills, Other Social/Emotional Health

Program information last updated on 9/6/11.

© Child Trends 2003