The study aims at identifying the influence of the problem-focused coping strategy on academic stress decrease of VIII Grade students in junior high schools. The study is a quantitative research using quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control group design. During the conduct of the study, the population of the participants was 180 students and the samples were gathered from the population by means of purposive sampling technique. The total number of the sample was 10 students, consisting of 5 students as the members of the experimental group and 5 students as the members of the control group. Then, the instrument that had been implemented in the group was the academic stress scale. On the other hand, the data analysis technique that had been implemented in the study was the non-parametric statistics namely the Wilcoxon test. The results of the study show that the problem-focused coping strategy has influence on academic stress decrease with the rate of significance 5% (sig. = 0.042, p < 0.05). Therefore, it might be safely concluded that the problem-focused coping strategy has influence on the academic stress decrease among the Grade VIII students in junior high schools.

This study aims to produce an individual counselling guide for assertive training techniques in State Senior High Schools in Yogyakarta. This research is research and development using the Borg & Gall development model, which was conducted through seven stages: preliminary research and data collection, planning, initial product development, early-stage trial, revision of early-stage trial, field trial, and field trial revision. Data collection methods used a questionnaire on the feasibility of assessing material experts, media experts, guidance and counselling teachers, and students' assertive behaviour scale. The data analysis technique used in this research is descriptive quantitative. This study resulted in (1) individual counselling guidelines, which consisted of an introduction, behavioristic approach, assertive nature, assertive training, implementation of assertive training techniques, conclusions, references, and attachments. (2) Assertive training technique guidebook can be categorized as “very good” with a final percentage value of 84.6%, 78% by material experts, and 88,3% by media experts. (3) The results of the field trial of three guidance and counselling teachers got a percentage value of 85.3%, which included the “very good” category, and the results of the main field trial of ten guidance and counselling teachers got a percentage value of 87.1% in “very good” category.

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of using real-life problems to improve novice counsellors' critical analytical thinking in humanistic counselling courses. The research method uses an experiment with a pretest-posttest control group design. The instrument used is a critical-analytical thinking scale. The research sample used a purposive sampling technique, which consisted of 84 students of the 2018 Guidance and Counseling UNY Study Program who took the Humanistic Counseling course. The samples were separated into experimental and control groups of 42 students. The pre-test and post-test data were analyzed using an independent sample t-test using SPSS Amos 25 software. The results show that the use of real-life problems in the Humanistic Counseling course was proven effective in improving students' critical-analytical thinking as novice counsellors. As a result, students are more stimulated to practice analyzing cases in various ways and can activate their cognitive complexity processes as novice counsellors. Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui keefektifan penggunaan masalah hidup riil untuk meningkatkan pemikiran kritis-analitis calon konselor pada mata kuliah konseling humanistik. Metode penelitian yang digunakna ialah eksperimen dengan rancangan pretest-posttest control group design. Instrumen yang digunakan ialah skala berpikir kritis-analitis. Sampel penelitian menggunakan teknik purposive sampling, yakni terdiri dari 84 mahasiswa angkatan 2018 porgram studi Bimbingan dan Konseling Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta yang menempuh mata kuliah Konseling Humanistik. Sampel dipisah pada kelompok eksperimen dan kelompok kontrol yang masing-masing berjumlah 42 mahasiswa. Data pre-test dan post-test dianalisis menggunakan independent sample t-test dengan menggunakan software SPSS Amos 25. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa, penggunaan masalah hidup riil pada mata kuliah konseling humanistik terbukti efektif meningkatkan pemikiran kritis-analitis mahasiswa calon konselor. Mahasiswa lebih terstimulasi untuk berlatih menganalisis kasus secara beragam serta mampu mengaktivasi proses kompleksitas kognitifnya sebagai calon konselor.