Group work on developing balanced life skills in young adults

In this study, the researcher aimed to develop a group work within the framework of the balance model and to examine the effectiveness of this group work on young adults' balanced life levels and balanced life basic skills. Before the main study, a pilot study was conducted with 11 university students in the young adult age group in Konya province. After this pilot study, the activities and content were reviewed and the program was finalized. The main study was conducted in Istanbul for university students in the young adult age group. Two groups were formed with the information obtained from the data collection tools: a 10-person experimental group and a 10-person control group. People in the experimental group participated in the group work to develop balanced life skills, which was planned as six sessions, and no program was applied to the control group. Balanced Life Scale and Balanced Life Basic Skills Scale in the context of positive psychotherapy balance model were used as data collection tools. Since the effect of group work was measured by applying two tests to the experimental and control groups before and after the group work, a 2x2 experimental design was used in the study. The data obtained from the pre-test and post-test measurements applied to the experimental and control groups of the study were subjected to statistical analysis with SPSS-27 application. Considering the number of people in the study group, these analyses were performed using Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, which are nonparametric tests. The findings showed that the group work to develop balanced life skills was effective in terms of both balanced life level and balanced life basic skills on the participants in the experimental group. It was determined that the significant effect in favor of the experimental group for the balanced life level was especially in the field of achievement among the subdimensions. There was no statistically significant difference in the scores of the control group in both scales. Based on these findings, it was concluded that group work with young adults was effective on the experimental group in terms of balanced life basic skills and balanced life. The results obtained were evaluated and discussed together with other studies in the literature and various recommendations were presented by the researcher. Considering that the group work was particularly effective in the achievement sub-dimension of the balanced life scale, it may be recommended to include this and similar programs in processes such as academic development and exam preparation. Keywords: Young Adulthood, Balance Model, Balanced Life, Balanced Life Skills, Positive Psychotherapy