The Effectiveness of Teaching Positive Thinking Skills on Academic buoyancy, Academic Engagement and Goal Orientation-Progress in Female Students with Depression Syndrome

Positive thinking skills are one of the most important skills to cope with academic challenges and students' success. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of teaching positive thinking skills on academic buoyancy, academic engagement and goal orientation-progress in girl students with depression syndrome in Izeh city. This research was a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of this study included all girl students with depression syndrome in Izeh city in 2017. Twenty-two of them were selected through convenience sampling method and were divided into two experimental and control groups by simple random method. The data was collected using the “Educational Vitality Questionnaire”, “Educational Enthusiasm Questionnaire”, and “Goal Orientation Questionnaire”. The validity of the instruments was confirmed by content validity and their reliability by Cronbach's alpha method. The experimental group received positive thinking skills training in 8 sessions of 90 minutes. Data was analyzed with SPSS. 23. The mean of pre-test scores in the experimental and control groups were respectively academic buoyancy (29.7, 29.4), academic engagement (44.07, 43.95), mastery goal orientation (30.46, 30.63), performance goal orientation (33.52, 33.29) and avoidance goal orientation (28.01, 27.30) in experimental, and there was no significant difference. The comparison of the mean post-test scores in the experimental and control groups were respectively academic buoyancy (34.16, 29.95), academic engagement (49.03, 43.7), mastery goal orientation (34.22, 31.55), performance goal orientation (37.28, 32.74) and avoidance goal orientation (26.86, 27.51) and there was a significant difference (P < 0.001). The intervention of teaching positive thinking skills in girl students with depression syndrome improves their academic performance. Therefore, the implementation of positive thinking training by experts is recommended to improve the educational conditions of girl students with depression syndrome.