The Effects of Hope Training on Academic Engagement of Mentally Retarded Female Students

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of hope training on academic engagement of mentally retarded female students of Khoramaabad at grade two in secondary school.
It is an experimental design with pre-test, post-test and control group. The population of the present study includes all exceptional girl students of Khoramaabad at grade two in secondary school in 2014-2015. 30 students were selected as samples of the present study and randomly assigned in two groups of experimental (n=15) and control group (n=15). The participants of experimental group were instructed about hope for nine sessions, yet the participants of control group received no intervention. Eventually, both groups took the post-test. The instrumentations were academic engagement questionnaire developed by Zerang (1391). Data were analyzed through SPSS software and Descriptive Statistics (mean and standard deviation).
The results revealed that hope training can have positive impact on academic engagement and some of its elements such as cognitive engagement, motivational engagement, and behavioral engagement of mental retardation girl students.
Therefore, it can be concluded that hope education has promoted academic engagement and its cognitive, motivational, and behavioral elements with mental retardation girl students and in turn, it has resulted in students’ academic better performance.