Comparing the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on academic procrastination in self-harming students

Academic procrastination sometimes causes compensable damage to students and among the results of procrastination are anxiety, neuroticism, insufficient motivation, low academic performance, poor self-evaluation. The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral thrapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on academic procrastination in self-injuring second year high school students.

The research design was a semi-experimental pre-test-post-test type with control and follow-up groups. The statistical population of this research is the self-injuring male students of the second secondary level of schools in district one of Sari city, who were studying in the academic year 2021-22; In this research, 45 students are selected as a sample among the self-injuring male students of the second secondary level according to the entry and exit criteria. The people under study are selected as a sample using the purposeful sampling method and 45 people are placed in groups (15 people in the control group and 15 people in the first experiment group and 15 people in the second experiment group) by a simple random method. The data collection tool included the academic procrastination questionnaire of Sawari (2011) and the self-harm questionnaire of Klonsky and Glenn (2011). Data were analyzed using SPSS-21 software and statistical tests of analysis of variance with repeated measurements and two-factor analysis of variance.

The findings showed that cognitive behavioral training and training based on acceptance and commitment have an effect on academic procrastination of self-harming students (P<0.001) and the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral training and training based on acceptance and commitment on the studied variables are the same.

It can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral training and education based on acceptance and commitment are effective on academic procrastination in self-harming students of the second year of high school, and both methods can be used to reduce academic procrastination.