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A Critique of “‘FRIENDS for Life’: The Results of a Resilience-Building, Anxiety-

Prevention Program in a Canadian Elementary School”

Sarah Foster

University of West Alabama

EDU 604: Advanced Educational Research

May 24, 2020

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Problem Statement

Anxiety disorders in children are correlated with poor school performance, and thus

should be addressed through a universal, preventative program.

Purpose of Study

The study’s purpose was to determine whether the FRIENDS program, a program that

uses cognitive behavioral principles to build emotional resilience and reduce mental illness

symptoms in elementary school students, was an effective approach to building resilience and

reducing anxiety in fourth grade Canadian students.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this study was that there would be a reduction in students’ self-

reported levels of anxiety after the intervention.

Description of the Quantitative Research

Quantitative research often seeks to apply existing theories in new situations, to test

whether the theory is applicable in all or other settings. Quantitative studies use instruments that

yield data that can be translated into numbers for statistical analysis. The results of quantitative

studies are presented using that statistical analysis and reported as summative responses,

rather than individual responses. Finally, those results are used to discuss further implications

and generalizations that can be made from the current study (Patten & Newhart, 2018). The

study “‘FRIENDS for Life’: The Results of a Resilience-Building, Anxiety-Prevention Program in

a Canadian Elementary School” meets these descriptors of a quantitative research study. The

authors of this research study sought to take existing research on the FRIENDS program and

apply it to a new scenario, Canadian elementary students, in order to extend the generalization

and objectivity of the previously determined theories. They used an instrument, the

Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, that allowed participants’ responses to be

converted into numerical data. They then analyzed this data statistically and used that statistical

analysis to provide the results of the study. The results were presented as the statistical mean

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of the group’s responses, rather than reporting individual participants’ responses. The authors

concluded the research article by providing further implications for school counselors,

generalizing the results of the study.

Description of Subjects

The participants in this study were 52 Canadian fourth-grade students from an urban

school in western Canada. The researchers used intact classes of 26 students each for the

control and experimental groups.

Description of Instruments

The primary research instrument used was the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for

Children (MASC), which was used as a pre-test and post-test. The MASC is a self-reported

measure of child anxiety, asking 39 total questions about physical symptoms, harm avoidance,

social anxiety, and separation anxiety. Students responded using a 4-point Likert-type scale,

where responses ranged from 0 (never true) to 3 (often true). The student responses were

converted into T-scores. The MASC is a standardized measure of anxiety which has shown to

have high test-retest reliability and acceptable levels of convergent and divergent validity.

Data Analysis

The researchers converted the pre-test and post-test student responses from the MASC

into T-scores for both groups. They calculated the mean, standard deviation, and standard error

mean, of the T-scores for the total responses and each subscale (physical symptoms, harm

avoidance, social anxiety, and separation anxiety). Then they found the difference between the

mean T-scores of the experimental group and control group, ran t-tests, and analysis of

variance.

Results

After analysis of the data, the authors found no statistical significance in the pre- and

post-test data for either group. Both groups showed reduced mean post-test scores when

compared to the pre-test results, which shows practical significance. The data shows that the

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control group had statistically significantly lower levels of anxiety at the start of the study. Both

the control group and the intervention group showed anxiety levels within the normal range at

the beginning and end of the study. Overall, the results opposed the hypothesis and did not

show that the FRIENDS for Life program decreased anxiety levels in these fourth grade

students.

Strengths and Limitations

The authors of this study used a quasi-experimental design and implemented the

program with fidelity. They used a reliable instrument and ran appropriate statistical analyses to

determine the results. However, there are several limitations to this study. First, the authors did

not use a random sample, instead using two intact classrooms. Second, the sample size of 52 is

relatively small. Third, the study used only student self-reported measures, rather than

assessing anxiety symptoms using multiple informants, such as teacher or parent observations.

Fourth, neither group showed elevated anxiety levels at the start of the study, which may have

limited the effects of the FRIENDS program. Finally, the authors did not or were unable to

control for other factors that may have decreased anxiety symptoms, such as maturation,

increased comfort levels within the school setting as the year progressed, or increased levels of

teacher training or attention.

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References

Patten, M. L., & Newhart, M. (2018). Understanding research methods: An overview of the

essentials (10th ed.). Routledge.

Rose, H., Miller, L., & Martinez, Y. (2018). “Friends for life”: The Results of a resilience-building,

anxiety-prevention program in a Canadian elementary school. Professional School

Counseling, 12(6), 400-407. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X0901200612