Abstract
Previous research suggests that solution-focused (SF) questions may be superior to problem-focused (PF) alternatives for a range of practical and psychological outcomes. However, a great deal remains unknown regarding the effects of specific SF (or PF) approaches and the mechanisms through which they occur. The aim of this pre-registered study was to investigate the extent to which SF questions targeting resources have a more positive effect on perceived goal attainability (PGA) and goal commitment than PF questions targeting obstacles or a combination of PF & SF questions targeting both resources and obstacles. 115 students aged 15–16 were randomly assigned to either (i) a SF condition targeting resources, (ii) a PF condition targeting obstacles or (iii) a combined-approach condition targeting both. All participants were asked to identify a challenging area of study before answering condition-specific questions. Although not all statistically significant, results indicated that the SF group had higher mean PGA and goal commitment than both the PF and combined PF & SF group. Effect size estimates were small-to-medium for PGA and small for goal commitment. Results of a mediation analysis suggested that condition had an indirect effect on goal commitment through enhanced PGA. Qualitative data analysis suggested that the PF question was more likely than the SF question to elicit thoughts of self-regulation, whereas the SF question was more likely to elicit thoughts of tools and resources. These findings are consistent with those from previous research and broaden our understanding of SF (vs PF) questions.
Highlights
1.1 Background and Prior ResearchSolution-focused (SF) coaching and therapy are very much aligned with positive psychology
The effect of condition on perceived goal attainability (PGA) was on the borderline of statistical significance: F(2, 112) = 2.90, p = .059, η2 =
When the outlier was removed, the p value for the overall ANOVA was raised but the effect of condition on PGA was still close to statistical significance: F(2, 111) = 2.71, p = .07, η2 =
Summary
Solution-focused (SF) coaching and therapy are very much aligned with positive psychology. Despite the wide appeal of SF coaching/therapy, it has been suggested that SF approaches are “more art than science” whereas positive psychology as a whole is “more science than art” The SF approach has been most frequently investigated in the form of solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT). A number of meta-analyses and reviews of SFBT suggest that the approach is effective in various settings including health (Zhang et al 2017) and education (Kim and Franklin 2009). Had the studies compared SFBT with a problem-focused intervention, different results might have been obtained. There have been only a handful of studies that explicitly compare SF and PF approaches
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