Workshops and Classes for Academic and Life Success 

Teaching life skills is a cost-effective way of delivering self-development help.

Workshops and Classes for Academic and 
Life Success (Live and Online)⁽¹⁾

Tom G. Stevens PhD; Counseling and Psychological Services; California State University, Long Beach
Sherry Bene' Stevens MFT; Counseling and Psychological Services; California State University, Fullerton

See Dr. Stevens latest self development and research projects:
1-Free, online ebook, You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression (with Research Results) 2010 Ed.
2-Free online questionnaire, Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ)--high correlations with many academic, career, and life happiness and success measures.

INDEX

Abstract
ACADEMIC AND LIFE SUCCESS
MISSION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND RELATIONSHIP TO PERSONAL QUALITIES
PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS DEVELOPING LIFE BELIEFS/SKILLS EDUCATION 
AT CSULB AND CSUF
Life Belief/Skill Delivery Methods
Life Belief/Skill Domains
Workshops
University Courses
Mediated Learning Modules
Life Skills Questionnaire Project
ANDY CARES: Computer Assisted Advising and Referral Expert System
Delivering Life Knowledge/Skills Via the Internet
DESIGNING AND DELIVERING LIFE BELIEF/SKILL MODULES
CONCLUSIONS

ABSTRACT

WHAT IS ACADEMIC AND LIFE SUCCESS?

Success can be judged from external and internal perspectives. It is common these days to use external criteria, since they are more easily observed. By these measures academic success includes measures like Grade Point Average (GPA), graduation rates, and time to completion of degrees. From a more internal set of criteria, students may measure their academic success by the amount and quality of what they have learned, the extent to which they reached their personal goals, and the effects (or anticipated effects) on their personal health, happiness, and future.

Life success is much harder to assess. Common external measures include education level, career status, income, physical and psychological health, successful marriages and other relationships, good moral behavior, contributions to society, and success achieving one's personal goals. Internal measures depend upon the individuals values and goals, but usually include some of the same categories just mentioned. Health and happiness are usually very important to individuals as well as the more socially -oriented goals such as relationships and career achievement. We would like to summarize life success into two major categories-contributions to society and personal health and happiness.

THE MISSION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND 
RELATIONSHIP TO PERSONAL QUALITIES

According to Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, the mission of higher education is intimately involved with producing college graduates with the "qualities of intellect, imagination, moral character, and emotional maturity." The mission statements of our two California State Universities include the following statements:

"The University's educational mission is to promote intellectual and personal development and to prepare students

for lifelong learning as well as preparing them to succeed in a variety of professional endeavors and

to function as informed, contributing members of the community. . ." CSULB

"We aspire to combine the best qualities of teaching and research universities where actively engaged students, faculty, and staff work in close collaboration to expand knowledge. . .Through experiences in and out of the classroom,

students develop the habit of intellectual inquiry, prepare for challenging professions, strengthen relationships to their communities and contribute productively to society. . . We strive to be a center of activity

essential to the intellectual, cultural and economic development of our region." CSUF

A cognitive psychological point of view says that personal qualities such as motivation and skills are contained in people's cognitive systems (which include cognitive systems controlling emotional and behavioral reactions). Higher (or "deeper") cognitions include basic values and beliefs about ones self, other people, and the world. They include "life scripts," expectations, goals, plans, and factual knowledge. Cognitive psychologists would rather use more specific and clearer ideas when talking about motivation. Within this theoretical framework, all education is directed at modifying a person's cognitive systems with the result of changing both motivation/emotional reactions and skilled thinking and behavior.

LIFE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Within the behavioral sciences considerable theory and research has been concerned with identifying personal qualities which increase success in academic, career, and personal life areas. Often these personal qualities of beliefs and skills have been identified in some detail. These life beliefs/skills can be summarized under the three general areas of learning/thinking, self-management, and interpersonal.

Learning/thinking knowledge/skills are involved in tasks such as learning and study, problem-solving, creative thinking, writing, mathematics, critical thinking skills, and many others.

Self-management knowledge/skills are involved in tasks such as goal-setting and planning, personal organization and time management, self-exploration, emotion-management (or coping), health management, career planning, and financial planning.

Interpersonal knowledge/skills are involved in tasks such as meeting people, assertive conflict resolution, intimacy, leadership, teaching, consulting, and job search.

Many of these life beliefs/skills are the same skills that counseling psychologists have been helping students develop through individual and group counseling for years. Our life skills education approach utilizes direct instruction teaching methods to teach clearly-defined life knowledge and skills. It uses methods that are less expensive than individual counseling and can be used with larger numbers of students. This direct instruction program supplements individual and group counseling--which is more individualized for students with more unique or complex problems that don't benefit so much from group instruction.

These life skills can be taught directly using classroom teaching methods. They may not be acquired or are acquired only sporadically when the assumption by university leaders is that students somehow acquire life skills such as self-management or interpersonal skills mysteriously as part of their college education. In fact the goals of university General Education requirements often include the life skills mentioned above. However, General Education requirements typically focus on selection of courses with only very broad goals with the exception of writing and math skills. These skills are often taught by careful design and accountability. In some cases students may not graduate without demonstrating minimal skills in these areas.

If people's intellectual abilities, motivation, leadership and interpersonal abilities, and other important success-related personal qualities are determined by their genetic makeup, early childhood experiences, ethnic origins, or other relatively unchangeable factors, then their success potential cannot be modified by their educational or other life experiences. While all of the above have proven to be significant factors affecting these personal qualities, they are not determinative factors. In fact there is too much evidence that people can rise above all of these factors to achieve all types of success, and the key is learning and personal development. It is a significant advance to realize that persons who come from socially deprived backgrounds may not have acquired some critical life beliefs and skills that lead to academic and life success. The good news is that much of this social deprivation may be overcome by a good, well-rounded college education. This insight may be especially important for first-generation college students.

National leaders in higher education have been asserting that the mission of higher education should be to instill in our college students personal attributes which cause them to contribute more to our society and to lead happier lives. In the past few decades behavioral scientists have begun to actually identify these beliefs and skills with some clarity. Now that skill identification is being accomplished, it is the responsibility of universities to implement programs that will explicitly teach these beliefs and skills.

VALUES AND BELIEFS

Many college educators would agree about the nature of good writing and math skills. They would agree about the nature some good interpersonal skills, some good time-management skills, or some good coping skills. However, if we explicitly get into the area of personal values and beliefs, we find an area that can be very controversial. People's values and beliefs come from their families, religions, cultures, peer groups, the media, and many other sources. Who is to judge which values or beliefs are better or worse, right or wrong? In the past many wars have been fought over differences in values. Within our own society differences in values cause a great deal of conflict between various subgroups.

It is tempting to say that we in higher education should entirely avoid dealing with value and belief issues. Some do. However, to say that we even could entirely avoid value issues would be extremely naive. Every discipline has values and beliefs that can potentially conflict with a student's family, cultural, or religious values. Consider the following points as illustrative of how this point of view is too simplistic.

Even in the areas of writing, math skills, interpersonal skills, time-management, and coping mentioned above, many values and beliefs are assumed. Writers often disagree about good style. Who is to say that empathetic listening is better than being "defensive," that facing problems is better than running from them, or that doing higher priority items first is better than doing them last? These are beliefs and value statements. Even in math it is possible to have a geometry in which there are three right angles in a triangle-which contradicts rules I learned in my 10^th grade geometry class. [For the curious, it is possible to have three right angles in a triangle formed on a sphere.]

Assumptions and beliefs are critical in every area of thinking. To not examine them and find their relationships to academic and life success would be to omit some of the most important aspects of learning from our curriculum.

What university does not stress values like truth, honesty, good scholarship, diversity, and respect for human rights and the law?

A recent Gallup poll found that over 90% of the general U. S. adult population agreed on the importance of a number of values such as honesty, democracy, kindness to others, and other values that could form an explicit common value core for our society (and educational system) to more consciously embrace and teach.

Psychological therapists have traditionally been trained to not attempt to change clients "values." Instead, they are encouraged to let clients discover their own way. Nevertheless, a recent poll of psychologists found that 68 to 87 percent attempt to guide their clients toward the following values/beliefs: competent perception and expression of feelings (87%); freedom, autonomy, and responsibility (85%); integration, coping, and work (81%); self-awareness and growth (77%); human relatedness and interpersonal and family commitment (73%); self-maintenance and physical fitness (71%); and mature values [sense of purpose, principles, etc.] (68%). Would you really not want therapists to help their clients develop these values?

Even the measures noted at the beginning of the article relating to higher grades and graduation rates reflect values. Who is to say that it is not better to have lower grades and lower graduation rates? At some point we must agree on some basic values or we are all lost.

Education, personal growth, and life-long learning are central values for almost all of us in higher education.

For the purposes of this article we will assume that most of us agree on the value of the outcomes stated above under the categories of contribution to society and personal health and happiness and that we desire to teach curriculum that serves those broad goals. In addition we must add that each discipline has its own basic values and beliefs. For example science believes in the value of theory and discovery of new facts and the value of the scientific method. Fine artists value individual expression and creativity. Engineers value beauty of design and efficiency. Behavioral scientists value human physical and psychological health, socio-economic progress, democracy, and the like.

While each discipline has its place and its own contribution to the overall values and beliefs that are taught to individual students, we still must ask the broader questions related to academic and life success. While each discipline can contribute to a student's academic and life success, it is possible that the we cannot see the forest for focusing on the trees.

We need to understand which personal values, beliefs, and skills contribute most to students' academic success and life success. Which make the most difference in their personal contribution to society, their health, and their happiness? Though our own attempts at life beliefs/skills education have not primarily emphasized values, we have learned that our clients core values and beliefs are often causal factors for their presenting problems such as depression, anxiety, anger, poor motivation, and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. Research evidence supports these conclusions. Thus our workshops have increasingly moved from a more strictly skills emphasis to a approach that emphasizes underlying values, goals, and beliefs. We don't try to convert students, but to get them to critically examine their beliefs in light of the evidence that certain beliefs are undermining their academic and/or life success. We also present some possible alternatives. This approach has been very successful in both clinical and self-development teaching situations.

It is vital that universities explicitly commit themselves and their educational programs to those values that have been shown to be critical to the academic success, societal contributions, and personal health and happiness of our students.

MISSION AND GOALS OF A LIFE EDUCATION PROGRAM

Tom Stevens began the Life Skills Education (LSE) program offered through the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Center at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in 1974-75. Its stated mission and goals were the following:

Identify life skills for increasing success in college, career, and personal life which are relevant to large numbers of students at CSULB. Complete literature reviews and research to more clearly identify these life skills increasing student success.

Focus on the development and utilization of new technology such as individualized direct instruction teaching methods, video-tape, and computer-based instruction to deliver effective life skills education to large numbers of college students.

Develop workshops, various media materials, and courses which use direct instruction methods to explicitly teach these identified life skills and do not conflict with offerings of academic departments.

Help develop more effective counseling techniques, practices, and mediated aides which help counselors help students develop their life skills more effectively.

In parallel with this program, the CSULB Career Development Center (CDC) and California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) also developed a series of workshops and materials for teaching career exploration and job search skills directly through workshops and other materials. This is similar to what has been done on many other campuses. Both campuses also offered versions of the Career Exploration course described below.

Sherry Bene' Stevens has been involved in developing and teaching the career-related workshops and classes and she has also developed a number of workshops in other life belief/skills education areas (see below).

PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS DEVELOPING LIFE BELIEFS/SKILLS EDUCATION 
AT CSULB AND CSUF

Life Belief/Skill Delivery Methods

The delivery methods we have personally used for direct instruction of life belief/skills include the following:

Workshops

Classes/Groups

Self-help questionnaires, manuals, and books

Audio and videotape self-instructional modules

Computer-based assessment, referral, and instruction

Internet web sites for academic success and self-development

The second important dimension is life belief/skill domain (content). We have personally designed instructional modules in the following (somewhat overlapping) areas:

Learning/Thinking

Comprehension and Memory

Problem-solving

Self-Management and Motivation

Self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-acceptance

Self-exploration (of values, beliefs, life scripts, plans, emotions, etc.)

Positive versus negative world views

Exploring and overcoming greatest anxieties and fears

Examining, defining, and modifying basic values, beliefs, expectations, and goals

Internal versus external life orientations

Time-management, goal-setting, and life planning

Emotion management strategies and techniques (for anxiety, anger, and depression)

Self-motivation and habit change strategies and techniques

Health and healing

Life transition

Career exploration, decision-making, and planning

Job-search strategies and techniques

Interpersonal and Communication

Meeting people and simple conversations

Intimacy

Joint problem-solving and conflict-resolution

Helping and counseling

Dealing with differences/diversity

Teaching

Leadership

Relationship Issues

Assertiveness

The following sections are organized by the method of delivery. Within each section we will describe some of the domain areas we have taught using that particular delivery method.

WORKSHOPS

Psychologically-Related Workshops (Self-management, Interpersonal, etc.)

CAPS, CSULB has offered two workshop series for many years. The workshops which focus on psychologically-related beliefs/skills have been 2-3 hour workshops held Friday afternoons. Each workshop is independent enough so that students can attend it for itself without attending any of the others. For many years the topics were not arranged in any particular order and featured workshops on a variety of life belief/skills training areas such as depression, stress/emotion management, various interpersonal skills.

Self-Esteem and Assertiveness Workshop Series. In 1993 Tom Stevens decided to organize the workshops into a series he has called by various names. The series is oriented around some key themes that explore both value/belief issues and more traditional life skills. Research has shown that problems like chronic anxiety and depression are related to underlying cognitive belief problems-such as low self-esteem, and negative cognitive processing bias, as well as life skills such as assertiveness. Therefore, the workshops combine an approach that deals with both the overall themes (such as negative thinking, conditional versus unconditional love, and internal versus external control beliefs) as well as life skills such as the self-exploration process, the self-acceptance process, and modifying expectations to increase or decrease stress and arousal.

With the assistance of Sherry Bene' Stevens he wrote a book, You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, and Depression (1998) that is based upon this series and is now used with the series and resultant General Education class that may be taken for credit. Following is a list of topics that regularly appear as part of this class/workshops series: (Most are also available in written form either as chapters in the above book or as separate self-help manuals. All written materials are available free on Tom's web site (www.csulb.edu/~tstevens).

You Can Choose to Be Happy

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life

Empowering Your Higher Self: the Center of Your Self-esteem and Inner Power

Overcome Negative Thinking & Unhappiness--create a Positive World by Adopting a Positive World View

Develop Greater Self-esteem

"Get into the Zone" of Harmonious Functioning--increase Learning, Happiness, and Achievement

"Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression

Dealing with Chronic Anxiety, Anger, and Depression

Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies

Are You Tired of Pleasing Everyone but Yourself? From External to Internal Control of Your Life

Causes of Success or Failure in Relationships

Resolving Conflicts and Increasing Intimacy

Overcoming Fears of Rejection and Loneliness

Meeting People-developing Conversational and Meeting People Skills

Behavioral Habit Change and Self-motivation Therapies

Personal workshops/Groups at CSUF. The following workshops were created and presented by Sherry Bene' Stevens. They fall under the following categories.

Transition and Change

Freshmen Success Series:

Growing Pains: Adjusting to College

Stress Management

Embracing Change, discover and learn about your personal life transitions as you enter college.

Transition & Change, focuses on life changes and positive attitudes during the transitional stages.

Balancing the Roles in Your Life , your role as a student, employee, friend, parent/child, etc., making it all work.

Relationship Issues

Relationships & Boundaries, focuses on the intricate part boundaries play in healthy relationships.

Relationships & Transition, managing the struggles and confusion of relationships in transition. Tools, resources, and support provided.

Women & Boundaries, focuses on creating healthy boundaries. Boundaries delineates where my physical and psychological space ends and yours begins.

Relationships & Forgiveness, focuses on how holding on to resentment and regrets affect our productivity and creativeness.

Communication Skills, focuses on the role of communication in a healthy relationship.

Relationship Groups focus on managing struggles and confusion of relationship issues. A variety of workshop topics are introduced during group sessions. Members work on how these issues affect their lives, specifically in terms of school, work, and family.

Health and Healing

Balance & Wellness focuses on making functional vs. dysfunctional choices to create balance, happiness, and harmony in your life.

Creating a Healing Attitude, focuses on choices and alternatives in creating a healthy life style.

Stress Management Workshops

Relaxation & Visualization Workshop Series

Self Esteem

Creating a Positive You, A self esteem workshop.

Self Esteem

Can I Make it in College? Looks at how self esteem effects your college career and goals.

Emotional Management

You Can Choose to be Happy, focuses on our choices and attitude to life events.

Grief & Loss, focuses on how to find healing and meaning in your own grief and loss; how to be supportive when someone else is suffering a loss.

Rise Above Anger, Anxiety, & Depression, focuses on how our choices effect our mood and our behavior.

Overcoming Anxieties and Fears

Anxiety and Depression How do I know if I'm depressed? What can I do about it? Do I have choices?

Fear of Failure/Fear of Success, focuses on facing fears.

Rise Above Anger, Anxiety, & Depression, focuses on how our choices effect our mood and our behavior.

Test Anxiety Workshops

Academic Success and Career Development Workshops

At both CSULB and CSUF workshops that focus on academic success and/or career development are offered regularly. We have offered these in the past and/or are currently offering them.

Career planning workshops.

Understanding your Values

Choosing the Right Major

Assessing Your Job Skills

Skills for Success

Interests

Tests for Interests and Skills

Creating Your Career and Life Goals

Informational Interviewing, focuses on talking to people in the field of interest to discover hands on information about specific careers.

From Backpack to Briefcase, a series of career planning and job search workshops.

Resume Writing

Mock Interviews Video taped mock interviews, evaluation, etc.

Informational Interviewing, focuses on talking to people in the field of interest to discover hands on information about specific careers.

Interviewing Techniques

Sharpening Your Interviewing Skills

The Job Search

Exploring Potential Employers

Meet the Industries Night

From Backpack to Briefcase, a series of career planning and job search workshops.

Job and Career Fairs

These are events that allow students to interact with potential employers or others from the world of work.

Time-management workshops

How to Get Control of Your Time and Yourself

Learning, comprehension, memory workshops.

Visualization Skills to enhance Memory

Relax!!! It's Time for Mid-terms

Relax!!! It's Time for Finals

Relaxing into Studying

Mindmapping, A creative way to use your right and left brain in planning and imagery. How to use this tool to achieve success in educational goals.

These were ordinarily done within the classroom at the invitation of instructors. They included taking the Life Skills Questionnaire and receiving results, plus a workshop on what to do to plan college coursework and other activities to become more the kind of person the student wants (1 to 1 1/2 hours plus testing time).

Faculty and Staff Training Workshops

It is important to understand that faculty and staff play key roles in student success. Any training that can improve their performance can also benefit students. We have both been involved in helping skills training and conflict-resolution training for faculty and staff for dealing more sensitively and effectively with students in one-on-one. Teaching faculty about student learning skills, time-management skills, and other skills that make a difference in student success can help them monitor and directly train students in their classes in one-on-one and group situations.

Dealing with Difficult People Offered as a three hour training for faculty and staff, or for individual staff meetings.

Brochures published by both CSUF and CSULB on Dealing with Difficult People.

Crisis Intervention Teams

UNIVERSITY COURSES

We have designed or offered the following university courses designed to enhance students' personal development and academic and life success:

Ed Psy 191: Career And Personal Explorations (3 units)

This general education course was designed to promote higher student retention and success through increasing skills in career planning, self-management, and study skills. It included small structured academic-success/goal-attainment groups which evidence indicated was one of the most beneficial and highest-rated part of the course. EdP 191 has had large enrollments and numbers of sections from beginning 1974 to current enrollments exceeding 1200 students/year. During 1974-76 we conducted multi-faceted outcome research study of course effects supporting the main hypotheses. Our follow-up study found attrition rates of students in course over 40% less than matched sample not taking course. A monograph was published and Tom presented workshops and coordinated conference to disseminate results to all California State University campuses (sponsored by Chancellor's Office) in 1975-76. A follow-up study showed that participants were active at developing similar programs on a number of CSU Campuses including CSUF. Sherry taught CSUF's version of the course.

Counseling 252: Career Exploration and Life Planning (3 units)

Designed to facilitate career and educational decision making. Specific objectives of the class include increasing your awareness of yourself, the world of work, relationships between college majors and occupations, and job search skills.

This course is an upper division course which teaches theory, research, and applied self-management techniques. It has evolved from a purely behaviorally-oriented self-management course into one that now is based upon Tom's book as described above.

Assertion Training was an interpersonal skills training focusing on traditional assertion training techniques with modifications. Didactic plus very structured role-playing and rehearsal was used. A doctoral research study compared this class to a variety of other assertion training modes and found this class to lead to more changed as measured by a variety of standardized assertiveness and self-concept tests.

MEDIATED LEARNING MODULES (MLMs): Audio, video, and written self-development materials

Mediated Learning Modules (MLM) are 30 minute to 2 hour audio or videotape structured learning units which follow a teaching/training model based upon contemporary learning and instructional theory. MLMs utilize methods similar to Becker and Englemann's direct instruction theory and Carkhuff's training model. Each tape includes direct instruction, practice, and generally feedback. These MLMs can be used alone or in a workshop, group, or class setting.

Over 30 MLMs on a variety of topics in self-management, assertion-training, dating skills, parenting, and other interpersonal skills completed. Ten experimental studies and 4 non-experimental studies completed on MLM outcomes. All experimental found significant positive results compared to various types of placebo controls. Measures included questionnaire, role-playing, actual interpersonal behaviors, ratings by conversation partners, etc. Thousands of students have spent time viewing the tapes since their original development in 1976-80. Students may view the tapes in the Learning Assistance Center or Counseling Center independently, as a "prescribed" part of counseling, or in a group, workshop, or class. We are slowly adding new tapes.

In addition, we have developed self-instructional written materials that we often give to students attending workshops, classes, or counseling. We have given away thousands of these one- to forty-page self-help materials to our students.

LIFE SKILLS QUESTIONNAIRE PROJECT: Assessment, Training, and research

The Life Skills Questionnaire (LSQ) was developed to screen large numbers of students at CSULB on cognitive, self-management, and interpersonal skills and to learn more about the relationships to these types of skills and college and life success criteria in areas such as academic success, career success, personal adjustment and happiness, and interpersonal relations success. In addition printouts were developed which provided specific campus referrals to student services, classes, self-help materials, and student organizations for students scoring low on specific scales. A 2-part workshop was developed for presenting information about life skills, testing students, and going over the results with them.

Over 4,500 students completed the LSQ and completed the workshops from 1984 through 1987. In addition we found the following general research results on our students and members of the community who participated.

Research on an older adult criterion group of over 300 subjects found that over 80% of the expected scale-criterion correlations were significant at the .01 level or greater with only 2 being in the unexpected direction.

A four-year follow-up study was completed on student success predictors. Results have shown a pattern of relationships between life skills variables and academic success (as measured by student records) similar--but weaker than--the pattern from our earlier concurrent validity studies.

STEVENS RELATIONSHIP QUESTIONNAIRE (SRQ)

Sherry and Tom designed a relationship questionnaire that includes six scales. A number of subjective ratings, behavioral, and questionnaire correlates were examined for about 90 persons in relationships. Correlations were good for all scales, but the Assertive Conflict Resolution Scale and the Intimacy scale both had exceptionally high correlations with the Locke-Wallace Marital Satisfaction questionnaire (over 0.70) and behavioral criteria.

ANDY CARES-Computerized Advising and Referral Expert System

During the late 1980s and early 1990s Tom developed an "expert-system" computer system based upon "if-then" rules for academic advising. Inputs include student record information on grades, aptitude scores, transcripts, and student responses to questions related to degree and general educational requirements met, work load, study skills, self-management skills, motivation, career direction, and interests. The print-out to the student and advisor included a complete degree audit, some recommended courses and other degree-requirements to be met, recommended actions for improving study-habits, time-management, social support, and other critical academic survival tips, and referrals to campus services for specific help (eg. Learning Assistance, Counseling, Career Planning). These questions and referrals were based partly upon previous research on the Life Skills Questionnaire. Each printout included reasons why each course or referral was being made. The student then reviewed the recommendations with a live advisor who was freed of the routine work and could focus upon issues more specific to that individual student. The project included a special focus on students who were "at risk" academically--such as students on probation and underepresented ethnic groups.

INTERNET WEB SITES

Tom has developed and maintained his web sites at http:/www.csulb.edu/~tstevens and http://www.csulb.edu/~tstevens/success. He has converted most of his self-instructional materials into hypertext format (including an e-book version of his book). Everything is free. Thus anyone in the world can potentially access the hundreds of pages of self-help materials we have developed on this web site. It is hierarchically arranged by problem/content area and includes a search engine for quickly finding help with needs.

In the coming months Tom hopes to create an assessment of academic-success and life-success related beliefs and skills that will be crudely analogous to an individual counseling session. A series of global to more specific questions will guide the student to help them identify problems, set goals for improvement, and receive direct instruction from the web site.

DESIGNING AND DELIVERING LIFE BELIEF/SKILL MODULES

If you want to deliver life belief/skills education to a target group, then there are certain basic considerations that need to be addressed. Following is a list of some of the tasks that need to be completed.

Identify the need-problem area(s). What basic student problem(s) are you concerned with? Is it attrition, low grades, low motivation, slow progress, emotional problems, loneliness, lack of support, poor study habits, poor time-management, poor classroom behavior, or what?

Identify the targets of your educational efforts. In most cases it will be students. However, it could be that the best way to help students with a particular problem would be to educate the people working directly or indirectly with the students-faculty, student service personnel, or administrators. For example a good way to improve graduation rates is to improve academic advising via providing good training to the advisors.

Identify key belief/skill areas that seem to make a difference between success and failure in the target domain. Ideally, at least some of these beliefs and skills may have already been identified in research literature. Even if they you do not find beliefs/skills that have been adequately verified, you may find an expert who has written a book that describes beliefs and skills that you can test in your own program. Finally, find the experts in your own university or others you can consult to help identify the skills. Don't forget about asking successful and unsuccessful students what they think, and don't forget to use you own powers of behavioral analysis and your own experience to create hypotheses for testing in your program. Surveys and focus groups can also be very helpful.

Another method is to use a "bootstraps" approach: start offering individual help, groups, or workshops with little content and let the attendees define the problems and share their failures and successes. You will learn a great deal about what works and what doesn't work from them. You can include what you have learned from them in the next workshop. Gradually, you will have a well-designed and inclusive workshop.

Delivery method(s). Which delivery method(s) will you use? For example a comprehensive delivery for delivering conflict-resolution skills could include the following elements. For students who are self-directed enough to benefit from self-help reading you could design a web site that did assessment and training via written materials and create hard-copy versions of the same for self-help book readers. For the student who had time and interest in taking an academic class, you could offer a class for credit on interpersonal skills that included modules on conflict resolution. For students who did not have time for a class but liked to be taught by a live instructor instead of by written materials, you could offer a workshop in conflict-resolutions. You could videotape it for those who could not attend.

For those students who need more intensive or individualized help, you could offer therapy groups or individual counseling. It may be that some of these students could also benefit from the direct instruction mode in conjunction with their counseling. The two modes could reinforce each other, and the student may learn how to become a better self-directed learner.

More scientifically meaningful evaluation is very time-consuming and may be expensive in other ways as well. Nevertheless, if a program is to be offered on a large scale repeatedly, it should attempt to evaluate the extent to which it benefits students. Using grant money and a consultant, Tom designed a research study to evaluate the Career and Personal Explorations course including a one-year follow-up study (see above). He also recruited Masters Degree students to design learning modules and do an experiment on them to test their efficacy in teaching students useful life skills compared to control groups (see above). In addition, a doctoral student did pre- and post-testing o f one of his Assertion Training classes and compared it to several other training methods. She found that his Assertion Training course raise self-esteem more than any of the other methods. Another simple method of evaluating content is to ask content experts to evaluate your materials and/or actual instruction.

Sherry also completed a research study to test the validity of some of the skills Sherry and Tom had been teaching in their workshops on intimacy and assertiveness. Sherry and Tom designed the Stevens Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ) to test the value of these skills (see above). These are illustrative of some of the methods we have used to evaluate our offerings.

Program development and organization. What decision-makers need to support the program and how will their support be attained? Who will organize and who will deliver the program? How much will it cost? When and where will it be? How will it be marketed? How will it be evaluated? How can you create an ongoing program instead of just a one-shot affair? If the need is great, how can it be delivered to larger numbers of students in a cost-effective manner? How will these students be able to find the motivation and time to attend? ("I haven't time for a time-management workshop?") Solving these practical problems are keys to a successful ongoing program.

CONCLUSIONS

We have also presented a history of our life beliefs/skills educational programs at CSULB and CSUF spanning over two decades. We have used a variety of delivery methods to offer a broad spectrum of self-development content. We have empirical, clinical, and personal evidence that these programs have been beneficial to thousands of students at our respective campuses. We hope that our experience will be useful to others who might be contemplating similar programs and are available for questions about our programs through our email addresses.

In a time when advances are being made in genetics and medications that may benefit people with depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems it is easy to forget that the most effective way people can get control of their thinking, emotions, actions, and life is through developing the key values, beliefs, and skills that make the difference between success and failure. Universities have always been in the business of teaching these critical beliefs and skills to students-just read the mission statement of almost any university. General education and liberal arts programs have been especially concerned about these critical life success personal qualities. With the advancement of the behavioral sciences we are learning more and more about the nature of these key cognitions. As we learn, we should also begin to use all of the delivery methods available to effectively teach students what we have learned.

One goal should be to improve the delivery of these beliefs/skills by university units such as counseling centers, career development centers, and learning assistance centers. However, the Faculty of the university should also use these new insights to modify the curriculum of the university and the requirements for graduation to reflect these new insights as well. As we be become more explicit and sure in our own knowledge, then we should develop more explicit and accountable ways of transmitting this knowledge to our students. Then we will assure that much more significant numbers of students gain the knowledge and skills needed to become more effective contributors to society and healthy and happy individuals.

Contact information:

1. Paper presented at National First Year Conference-West, San Francisco; January 28, 2000

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