The Effectiveness of Islamic-Oriented Happiness Training in Promotion of Psychological Well-Being and Religious Orientation among Senior High School Students in Kerman

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of Islamic-oriented happiness training in promotion of psychological well-being and religious orientation among senior high school students in Kerman. This quasi-experimental research had a pretest-posttest control group design. The statistical population of the study comprised female senior high school students in Kerman who were referred to the counseling center affiliated to the Directorate of Education by school counselors due to psychological problems. From among these students, 30 individuals were selected and randomly assigned to the experimental (N=15) and control (N=15) groups. The experimental group was subjected to 10 ninety-minute sessions of Islamic-oriented happiness training, whereas the control group did not receive any intervention. Both groups responded to the religious orientation and psychological well-being questionnaires geared towards Islamic education literature before and after the intervention. The validity of the instruments was established through computing the correlation of each item with the total score of the respective subscale. The reliability of the instruments was assessed via Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and all obtained indices were significant. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and covariance analysis. The results demonstrated that Islamic-oriented happiness training had a significant effect on promotion of students’ psychological well-being and religious orientation through emphasis on enjoyment of earthly pleasures sanctioned by Islamic law, patience and trust in God, as well as the components of positive psychology.