The Validity of the Group Questionnaire: Construct Clarity or Construct Drift?

The Group Questionnaire (GQ) is a recently developed survey that assesses the quality of the therapeutic relationship in group treatment by measuring quality across 3 structural dimensions of the relationship: member-member, member-leader, and member-group. Its 3 quality subscales-Positive Bonding Relationship, Positive Working Relationship, and Negative Relationship-are taken from the 3-factor conceptualization of the group therapeutic relationship originally proposed by Johnson and colleagues (2005). The purpose of the present study was to estimate the GQ's construct and criterion-related validity by (a) replicating the Johnson et al. (2005) factor structure with a similar sample and (b) correlating the GQ with the measures from which it was originally derived (i.e., Working Alliance Inventory, Burns Empathy Scale, Therapeutic Factors Inventory, Group Climate Questionnaire). Two hundred ninety participants were recruited from 65 treatment groups at 4 university counseling centers and 1 community mental health clinic. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) fit indexes from both single- and multiple-level analyses met standards for acceptable model fit. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) suggested the GQ is sensitive to group level processes, and the predicted correlation coefficients between the GQ and the criterion measures were sufficiently high to lend support for the GQ's criterion-related validity. The present study's findings provide support that the GQ is an empirically valid measure of the quality of the group therapeutic relationship.