Comparison of the Effectiveness of FRIENDS’s Psychological Education, Short-Term Solution-Oriented Counseling and Aerobic Exercise on Students' communication Skills

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of FRIENDS psychological training, short-term solution-oriented therapy, and aerobic exercise (FitnessGram) on students’ communication skill. 

The present study was quasi-experimental research with pretest and posttest-follow-up stages and control group. The statistical population of this study included all adolescents aged 13 to 15 years old in the first grade of Tehran State High School in Kahrizak Education District in the academic year of 2019-2020. Forty students were selected as our sample with non-convenience sampling method utilizing G*Power software. The subjects were assigned randomly into 3 intervention groups and control group. First experimental group trained by the researcher for nine 60-minute group sessions of FRIENDS program; SFBT intervention implemented based on Gutterman advanced techniques for Solution-Focused Counseling Protocol in eight 90-minute group sessions; and the last experiment group trained in FitnessGram exercises nine-60 minutes sessions in three weeks. Barton communication questionnaire used to gather research data.

Recruited data analyzed by MANOVA. Results showed a significant difference between the intervention groups in terms of communication skills in the pretest-posttest on feedback, verbal, and auditory subscales (p<0.009), (p<0.006),  (p<0.001) respectively; Also in pretest and follow-up stage, feedback subscale (p<0.008) and auditory subscale (p<0.002) showed a significant difference between the intervention groups.

Findings indicated that students could benefit psychoeducations in academic settings in order to improve their communication skills.