COUN 598 - Thesis

This course will provide the structure, format, support, and encouragement for the candidate to complete the graduate research/literature review exercise and present it to colleagues.
The graduate research/literature review exercise is the application step of the master's degree. In developing this paper, candidates will be encouraged to employ their skills as researchers and active practitioners to complete an exercise that will contribute to the field. This seminar will provide the opportunity to think through their ideas with faculty guidance and present their work in an open public forum for feedback and evaluation.

1. The core of the thesis is a full description of three related interventions addressing marriage and family needs within a church, a community organization, or a non-profit/NGO. The interventions should be empirically supported by substantial research, but customized for the specific community, culture, and population that you wish to serve. As part of each intervention, you must include a clear and comprehensive description of outcome measures that will be used to evaluate the success of the interventions. This section will be a minimum of 40 pages with at least 30 references from the professional literature. 
2. A feasibility/sustainability chapter that will discuss the costs of the interventions, sources of initial funding, and sources of ongoing funding.
3. An integration chapter describing your approach to integrating faith and science
   

A. General Learning Objectives
This course seeks to:

• Discuss stress theories in relation to counseling in both school and community settings.
• Examine advocacy processes needed to address institutional and social barriers that impede access, equity, and success for clients.
• Present family systems approach to conceptualizing problems.
• Develop models of consultation that can be used in interventions.
• Analyze how social justice operates in the provision of services to the underserved.
• Effectively apply research methods that have been acquired during the course of the study.

B. Specific Behavioral Objectives
As a result of the activities and study in this course, the student should be able to:

• Know which models, modalities, and/or techniques are most effective for presenting problems.
• Identify clients’ strengths, resilience, and resources
• Demonstrate through the interventions how various psychological approaches can be applied in school and community settings.
• Gather and review intake information, giving balanced attention to individual, family, community, cultural, and contextual factors.
• Comprehend a variety of individual and systemic therapeutic models and their application, including evidence-based therapies and culturally sensitive approaches.
• Deliver interventions in a way that is sensitive to the special needs of clients (e.g., gender, age, socioeconomic status, culture/race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, personal history, and larger systems issues of the client).
• Demonstrate an awareness of his/her present involvement in various systems.
  

• January: Sign up for the thesis course. A one-page proposal listing your three related empirically supported interventions that you plan on customizing to the appropriate context will be due by January 31st. Also, include a brief description of the community/population that you intend to serve with these interventions. Include one core reference for each intervention that you propose. Engage in the online thesis seminar which will be conducted through January and February covering the topics below:
  A. Significance of research in improving higher education
  B. Implementing research in institutional settings
  C. Communication of research findings
  D. Evaluating research projects
• February: An annotated bibliography is due by February 28th. This annotated bibliography will list each of your references, along with a paragraph of relevant material that you are taking from that source. The paragraph is NOT an overview or an abstract of the source, but specifically the useful parts of the source that you need for your paper. Write each paragraph in such a way that it can easily be modified and incorporated into your thesis. 
• March: A rough draft is due by March 31st of your three related interventions. 
• April: By April 31st, you should turn in your corrections to the interventions section along with your initial chapters for integration and feasibility/sustainability. 
• May: A final version of your complete thesis must be submitted to the tutor by May 31st. A second faculty reader will also grade the thesis. 
• June: By June 30th, two bound copies of your thesis must be submitted to ETS, with an electronic copy sent to Lee.