American School Counselor Association, Article Critique Example

Wilkerson et al’s (n.d.) research on the American School Counselor Association’s model for framework focuses on how the implementation of this Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) benefits school-aged children in elementary programs. The rationale for the research is that learning rate, capacity for knowledge, and overall grades in English, Language Arts, and Math were sorely lacking with these children. Therefore, the ASCA implemented this program in order to curtail dropping test scores with these children. Thus, a four-year longitudinal study commenced in which a sample of schools was stratified by their level and their location and their results were compared with the experimental group exposed to RAMP. Researchers hoped that there would be a significant different between the control and variable group in order to prove the efficacy of the RAMP program. This hope would result in furbishing schools that were data-driven, and had accountable counseling programs. These results were significant, as they would point toward a further efficacy of counseling programs in elementary school education.

The article focuses on their results and gives a little bit of background for their study. This background includes identifying the needs for counseling programs and the potential for their inclusion in these schools. The article does a great job in extolling this research and these counseling program’s efficacy, however, it is lacking in a comprehensive list of quantitative data. Meaning that the focus of the research looked through a narrow scope at these schools and did not include any outside factors (i.e. location differentiation, gender, teacher qualification) that would have otherwise benefited the study and research in being more inclusive in its factor check list. Also, some of the researchers were further limited in that they didn’t include RAMP-designated middle and secondary schools, nor did they examine “sustained impact beyond the initial year of RAMP designation” (p. 173) and finally it did not randomize the control group.

The overall results of the study is that “comprehensive school counseling programs are associated with improved student success is limited” (p. 173), however, the study goes on to state that one study evaluated these outcomes for RAMP and found that  the students involved in Ward’s 31 school RAMP programs showed higher “student achievement, attendance rates, third grad reading achievement, and third grad, low-income-related achievement compared to state averages” (p. 173).

The results of the RAMP program mean that there is new research that supports the idea of “comprehensive school counseling programs” (p. 173-174). Thus, there are new ways to implement student achievement, or lack of achievement, in these schools. Schools also now have the tools necessary to create more successful programs that include school mottos, counseling programs, outcome-based classrooms, and a way in which teachers and administration can begin to “close the gap” (p. 174) on failing students, or failing programs. With this counseling program, schools are beginning to re-examine their funds allocation, as well as their “educational priorities” (p. 174). Ultimately what this study/research conquered was a way in which school reform can become an integrated process through specialized counseling programs aimed at elementary schools (despite the study not venturing forth into middle schools; an area that would also benefit from such counseling).

References

Wilkerson, K. Perusse, R. & Hughes, A. (n.d.). “Comprehensive school counseling programs and student achievement outcomes: a comparative analysis.” ASCA 16(3), pp. 172-183.