A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of the Penn Resilience Program (PRP) in Reducing Psychological Distress and Improving Explanatory Style in Students

The results of various studies show that mental health problems in learners have an undeniable role by weakening their psychological capital in explaining the cognitive, motivational and emotional dysfunction of learners. The meta-analysis method was used to determine the effectiveness of resilience intervention and the identification of multiple moderators in this study. Interventional efforts based on the Resilience Program were extracted from the databases and 22 research and 147 effect sizes were selected for the final analysis. Data were analyzed using CMA2 software. The results showed that the overall effect size regarding to effectiveness of the interventions based on the Resilience Program was 0.562. The results of analyzing moderator effects based on the type of dependent variable, subject type and culture on the effectiveness of Program showed that the effect size in the research included the positive dependent variable in comparison with the negative dependent variable. The effect of research on student sample compared with university students and, finally, the effect size of the research on collective culture was more than that of individualist cultural. In general, the results showed that although the Resilience Program basically emphasized the interpretive capacities of learners' cognitive assessments and the equipping of their coping resources, strategy an active encounter with challenging demands replaces exaggerated attempts and responses, but focuses on the explicit role of some moderators, such as of culture, the target community, and even the positive nature or negative expected predictions of the selected intervention model is also of particular importance.