Working as a team requires collaborative effort towards achieving the project or set task. Realizing a group’s efficiency and effectiveness largely relies on how the group perceives the common set goal. Highlighting member commonalities achieves satisfaction in team members resulting in working more efficiently together. With teams having high levels of interdependence among members, open communication plays a significant role in perceiving the set goal. Therefore, when the group’s common objective is established, not only is efficiency and team effectiveness realized but also conflict resolution (Toseland & Rivas, 2012). Once member commonalities are highlighted, teams can have attainable and clear goals to feel motivated and accomplished. As such, highlighting commonalities associated with open communication, effective coordination, and efficient cooperation minimizes conflict(s) and confusion and allows for task completion on time.
Evidence-based group work (EBGW) is the reasonable and conscientious use of evidence in the current best practice that calls the group worker to appraise critically and systematically-collected information from every source. Further, the procedure requires knowledge acquisition by attending presentations and conferences, reading professional journals, and writing or presenting the acquired knowledge (Pollio & Macgowan, 2013). The practice also requires evaluation of practice outcomes through consistent methods and implementation of models that are either developed or exist by the practitioner rationally and consistently. Attending to the impact of the results on individuals and pointing out the differences in decisions associated with evidence-based practice (Pollio & Macgowan, 2013). Lastly, the approach demands incorporating evidence in comprehending leadership, group processes, and development.
The three elements of evidence-based group work are determining best evidence, application in practice, and evaluation. As Macgowan (2008) explains, the three elements are critical in how a group worker formulates a research question when following through with the four fundamental stages in EBGW. With a research question being practical, answerable, and member-relevant, it becomes significant that the entire research process benefits every group member. At the initial stage of EBGW, Macgowan (2008) shows that every member must provide adequate answers to the research question and be concerned about how the question can be applied in practice. For example, every group worker must provide a sufficient explanation (s) on ‘the significance of using an intervention program in a study?’ To every worker, providing an acceptable answer will require engaging in research practice to determine the correct feedback.
With the establishment of the research question, the second stage of EBGW becomes evidence search. Macgowan (2008) shows that efficient and effective searches are conducted to obtain relevant research. Thus, Macgowan emphasizes the research merit hierarchy and how the researcher can choose effective sources. Answering the research question requires selecting critical references to provide the correct answers. With this, group workers can choose from individual studies, practice or treatment guidelines, and systematic reviews. A group worker can decide to utilize questionnaires from qualitative analyses, while in qualitative studies, s/he can choose to use interviews or focus groups. A group worker can then assess the study’s merit through applicability, impact, and rigor.
Article 1
Utami and May (2018) carried out their study under the title, The influence of anger management on aggression behavior and peer acceptance as a mediation variable. They aimed to measure anger management and aggression. Through systematic research, a quantitative research technique, the researchers collected data more dominant via numbers by a paradigm to establish the research problem, methods, theories, and assumptions and discover tools for data analysis. The respondents in the research constituted 200 individuals aged between 9 and 13 years, with men being 46.5 percent and women filling up the rest of the position. The study’s outcomes showed a direct association existed between aggressive behaviors and anger management. Further, Utami and May (2018) showed an increase in anger and emotional control resulted in a decrease in aggressive behavior. The indirect association between the two variables had an effect of 0.1153.
Article 2
Zarshenas, Baneshi, Sharif, and Moghimi (2017) carried out there on Anger management in substance abuse based on cognitive behavioral therapy: An intervention study aimed at investigating anger management effect based on group education (Zarshenas et al., 2018). The investigation targeted patients based on substances according to the cognitive-behavioral approach by Patrick Reilly. The research was quasi-experimental, and every patient that met the inclusion criteria was assessed regarding their level of aggression. Through a non-randomized trial with post-test or pre-test patient assessment, the participants were divided into a control and an intervention group. The population for the study included every patient admitted to Iran, Shiraz, and Ebnesina Hospitals. The search results showed there was an imperative dissimilarity between the two crowds in terms of violent behavior levels after the intercession, signified with p = 0.001 (Zarshenas et al., 2017). Nonetheless, no significant association was observed between the demographic variables and the levels of aggression, represented by p>0.05.
References
Macgowan, M. J. (2008). A guide to evidence-based group work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pollio, D. E., & Macgowan, M. J. (2013). Evidence-Based Group Work in Community Settings. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Toseland, R. W., & Rivas, R. F. (2017). An Introduction to Group Work Practice, Eighth Edition. Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.
Utami, R. R. & May, L. E. (2018). The influence of anger management on aggression behavior and peer acceptance as a mediation variable. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), 304.
Zarshenas, L., Baneshi, M., Sharif, F., & Moghimi, S. E. (2017). Anger management in substance abuse based on cognitive behavioral therapy: an interventional study. Bmc Psychiatry, 17, 1.)