The Impact of Solution- Focused Group Counseling on the Students’ Academic Motivation

Academic motivation is an important factor in teaching and learning so that students' academic achievement and success cannot be achieved without motivation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of solution-based group counseling on improving academic motivation in sixth grade male students.

This study was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design with two experimental and control groups. The statistical population of this study consisted of all sixth grade male students in Tehran during the academic year of 2017-2018. The sample included 20 students from the mentioned papulation who were selected by convenient sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The research instrument was the Harter's Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation Scale (1981). The experimental group received nine 90-minute sessions of group counseling intervention, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Finally, post-test was performed for both experimental and control groups and data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance.

The results of this study showed that solution-based group counseling had a positive effect on students' academic motivation in both extrinsic motivation (F (1, 16) = 18.897, P= 0.000) and intrinsic motivation F (1, 16) = 7.972, P= 0.012), That is, the mean scores of academic motivation in both external and internal motivation subscales showed a significant increase in the experimental group compared to the control group.

According to the findings of this study, solution-based group counseling focuses on students 'abilities and capabilities, as well as recalling their past successes, changing students' perceptions of their academic issues, and can enhance their motivation to study. Therefore, it can be expected that solution-based group counseling sessions can increase students' academic motivation.