The effectiveness of a group counseling program in enhancing the ability to form friendship among academically talented students

Adolescence is a very important stage, especially in the life of the talented students. This research aimed at identifying the effect of a group counseling program in enhancing the ability to form friendship among a sample of academically talented students at Halima Al-Saadia Secondary School in Jordan. The researchers used Semi-experimental approach. The study sample consisted of (29) students from seventh to tenth grades, they were randomly distributed into experimental group (n=16), and control group (n=13). And a group counseling program consisted of 9 sessions has been developed and applied among the experimental group. In addition to that forming friendship scale has been developed and administrated among the participants in the two groups, pre, post applying the program, and a three weeks follow up measurement was conducted to the experimental group. Mann-Whitney test was used to examine the hypotheses validity. The results revealed increasing the level of forming friendship among the participants of the experimental group comparing with the control group, with (39.00) Mann-Whitney value, which shows the effectiveness of the training program. Also there were no statistically differences in the experimental group means due to the birth order in the effectiveness of the program, and a persistent effect of the program after –three weeks follow-up. This research sheds light on the talented adolescents in the government schools not a talented school, add to that the research focuses on the social aspect while the studies addressed the academic aspects of gifted and talented students.