The efficacy of forgiveness therapy in the happiness and quality of academic life of students

Social and psychological capital might play an influential role in the academic development of the university students. The purpose of this descriptive/correlational study was to investigate the role of social and psychological capital in predicting students' academic engagement. The population of this study included all the BA students of University of Guilan (n = 12000) in the academic year of 2017-2018 out of whom 529 students (278 girls and 251 boys) were selected by multi-stage random sampling method. Academic Engagement Scale (Friedrichs et al., 2004), Social Capital Questionnaire (Delaaviz, 2005), and Psychological Capital Questionnaire (Lutans et al., 2007) were used to gather the data. The collected data were analyzed by Pearson correlation test and step-by-step multiple regression method. The results of regression analysis showed that the variables of hope, group participation and social trust accounted for 0.29 of the changes in academic engagement of the students. It can be concluded that social and psychological capital plays an important role in the students’ academic engagement. It is suggested that the planners of the higher education system pay due attention to the role of social and psychological considerations in designing the educational programs so that the students' academic engagement can be enhanced.