Cognitive Therapy for Children Program for Elementary School Bullies - Dissertation Example

The other 2 research participants decided to withdrew from the study since their parents changed their minds halfway through the program. However, the attendance rate of 9 out of 15 or 60% of the entire research participants still provided further support for treatment feasibility.On a separate occasion, one school group had to be discontinued from the study because the trained teacher had some health problems. Since only 2 trained teachers were left to facilitate the curriculum program, the second group was eliminated.

Concerning the program intervention, students who managed to complete the entire research program were 58% of the students completed at least 75% of the intervention sessions, with most absences resulting from the student missing school on that day. Many reasons explain the low levels of attendance, retention, and recruitment rates amongst the research participants invited to participate in this study. For instance, past research studies suggest that numerous factors such as the rates of service usage are deficient for children residing in inner-city communities, whereas others may be at risks of experiencing high levels of stress due to poverty (Flisher et al.

, 1997; Saunders et al., 1994; Buckner & Bassuk, 1997). Furthermore, urban living has been associated with lower ongoing involvement rates in child mental health-focused intervention studies. Because most of the children in the current study were socially and economically disadvantaged, factors such as poor health conditions, personal or familial problems, and socio-economic problems could serve as barriers to a perfect attendance and effective recruitment and retention rates when incorporating the MBCT-C intervention in the elementary students’ core curriculum.

The second research hypothesis assumes that after the research participants have completed the Mindfulness Matters curriculum, they will decrease externalizing behaviours determined by the difference between their pre-and post-test scores.