Abstract:
The purposes of this research were to study the effect of Buddhist personal growth and counseling group on sense of coherence of university students and to investigate psychological experiences concerning sense of coherence of the students who participated in the group, through quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was obtained through the quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest control group design. Twelve students from Chandrakasem Rajabhat University , whose scores were below the mean 0.5SD on SOC Questionnaire, were assigned to an experimental group and a control group of 6 members each. The experimental group participated in Buddhist personal growth and counseling group for 6 sessions, a session of 3 hours, 3 session per day, for 2 consecutive days, which made approximately 18 hours. During the pretest, posttest and 2-week follow-up study, all participants completed the SOC Questionnaire. A two-way ANOVA repeated measures and one-way ANOVA repeated measures were used for data analysis. The qualitative data was obtained through the semi-structure interview with 6 participants from experimental group, after the experiment. The major findings are as follows : 4.The posttest and 2-week follow-up scores on sense of coherence of the experimental group are significantly higher than its pretest scores (p<.001). No differences on those scores are found between the posttest and follow-up data. 5.The posttest and 2-week follow-up scores on sense of coherence of the experimental group are significantly higher than those scores of the control group (p<.001 and p<.01, respectively) 6.The qualitative analysis of the data indicate that the group members perceive the beneficial effects of counseling, and experience the supportive and meaningful relationships in the group which facilitating the more understanding of their life experiences and issues, and have the perception that their life are 1) comprehensible 2) manageable and 3) meaningful. The warm and trusting relationships facilitating by the group leader can be the initial factor enhancing the sense of coherence among the group members.