Effects of teaching self-regulatory learning strategies on academic achievement and anxiety of Psychology students at the Islamic Azad University of Birjand

Learning self-regulation involves a set of strategies that students use to regulate their cognition and increase their academic achievement accordingly. Anxiety، on the other hand، is a main cause of psychological disorder that affects students’ academic achievement. The present paper was conducted to study the influence of teaching self-regulatory learning strategies on students'' academic achievement and anxiety. In this quasi-experimental study، 173 freshmen of psychology were voluntarily given Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). 46 of whom who had anxiety scores above 8 were selected and divided into 2 simple randomized homogeneous experimental and control groups; 23 students in each. The experimental group received eight 100-minute sessions of self-regulatory learning instruction twice a week; the control group had no education at all. The instrument to assess students’ anxiety and academic achievement included BAI and students’ total average scores. The obtained data was fed into SPSS software (V: 17) and analyzed by means of statistical tests (i. e. independent and dependent t-tests، c 2، and covariance) at the significant level P<0. 05. Having applied self-regulatory learning strategies education، findings indicated that، the experimental groups’ mean anxiety score decreased from 18. 26 to 7. 83 which was statistically significant (P<0. 001); while that of the control group was not statistically significant after the intervention. If one takes the fact that students’ academic achievement has a direct relationship with their test anxiety into account، teaching self-regulatory strategies can be suggested for the improvement of students’ academic performance.