The Effectiveness of Cognitive Simulation Techniques Group Training on Academic Engagement and Academic Procrastination in Nursing Students

Cognitive factors play a large role in the learning process; therefore purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive simulation techniques group training on academic procrastination and academic engagement in nursing students.

The present study is a Semi-experimental with pre-test, post-test, and control group in 2019. The statistical population of the study consisted of all 384 undergraduate female nursing students of Gorgan School of Nursing and Midwifery that they had academic procrastination. Participants voluntarily responded to the academic procrastination questionnaire. The number of 30 students who had the most academic procrastination scores was selected and Simple randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The academic engagement questionnaire and academic procrastination questionnaire were used. Cognitive Simulation Techniques Training was applied to the experimental group in 8 sessions with 90 minute. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance with spss18 software.

The results showed that the mean and standard deviation of academic engagement in the pre-test of the experimental group was (51.30 ±4.11) and the control group was (50.24±4.78) and in the post-test of the experimental group was (79.24± 4.01) and the control group  (50.19. ± 4.88) was obtained. The mean and standard deviation of academic procrastination in the pre-test of the experimental group of (60.14 ±8.95) and control of 60.20 ± 8.22 and in the post-test of the experimental group of (34.28 ± 5.58) and control of (61.96 ± 6.24) was obtained. Generally results showed that cognitive simulation techniques group training has a significant effect on academic engagement and academic lagging at the level of (P <0.001).

The results of this study showed that cognitive simulation techniques group training can be effective in academic engagement and academic procrastination of nursing students. Therefore, educators in the medical education system can use this method as a facilitator in learning nursing students.