فاعلية برنامج إرشاد جمعي في التأمل التجاوزي في تحسين مستوى التوافق النفسي لدى طالبات الصف الحادي عشر بمحافظة مسقط
The study aimed to build a group counseling program in Transcendental Meditation and evaluate its effectiveness in enhancing the level of general psychological adjustment of the female students in the eleventh grade in the governorate of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, using the semi-empirical method. In order to select the sample of the study, the researcher used the general psychological adjustment scale on the female students of the eleventh grade in the Omama bint Abi Al Salt School for the basic education in the governorate of Muscat. Out of 76 female students, 30 students, who attained the lowest grades in the used scale, were chosen for the study. The sample was randomly divided into two groups; an experimental group of 15 students who were trained on the group counseling program in TM, prepared by the researcher, and a control group of 15 students who did not get any training on the program. The group counseling program included 12 counseling sessions over six weeks (two sessions a week). Each session was 45-60 minutes long. They received also a pre-program, a post-program, and a follow up session. The program was based on the theory of cognitive behavioral therapy and focused on the cognitive behavioral methods. The results of the study included: 1) Statistically significant differences α≤0.05 were found in the scales of the psychological adjustment for the total scale and for each of its dimensions between the individuals of the two groups: the experimental and the control. The post-test was in favor of the experimental group, which indicates the effectiveness of the group counseling program used in this study. 2) Statistically significant differences α≤0.05 were found between the pretest and posttest for the psychological adjustment totals of the scale and for each of its dimensions. These differences were in favor of the posttest, where P value in all of it was less than 0.05, which indicates the effectiveness of the group counseling program used in this study. 3) No statistically significant differences of α≤0.05 were found between the posttest and the follow up for the psychological adjustment total scale and for each of its dimensions for the experimental group, where the P was greater than 0.05, which indicates that the effect of the group counseling program persists. Based on these results, the study had several recommendations and suggestions for the improvement of the level of the general psychological adjustment of the students of various age groups. (Author’s abstract)