Evaluating the individual counseling of conduct problem adolescents: The goal attainment scaling method

Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) is described as a potentially useful way of evaluating goal attainment of individual counseling provided to public school adolescents with conduct problems. Utilization of the GAS method for individual counseling involves a counselor (e.g., school psychologist) and a pupil in goal setting, program design, goal attainment scaling, and goal attainment evaluation activities. An application of the GAS method to evaluate goal attainment of individual counseling of conduct problem adolescents in an urban high school is presented, and formative evaluation data pertaining to practical and technical properties of the approach are reported. Advantages and limitations of the GAS method are discussed.