Comparison of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy on Academic Belief, Emotional Regulation, and Academic Adjustment

In any society, students are considered human assets. In addition, the second period of secondary school is one of the most important periods of education, in which students face special biological, social, and psychological conditions, and many mental and physical pressures and adaptation problems are a special feature of this period. Target this study aimed to compare the effectiveness of acceptance and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSR) on academic belief, emotional regulation, and academic adjustment in male high school students in Ilam.

The current research is a type of clinical trial and experimental type with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of this research includes all male students of the second secondary level of Ilam city in the academic year of 2019. that by one-stage cluster random sampling method, three high schools were randomly selected from among all boys' high schools in Ilam city, then 45 students were selected as sample members from among the students studying in these high schools and were completely randomly selected in three Acceptance and commitment-based therapy (ACT), mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy (MBSR) and control group were divided. Each group had 15 members. First, a pre-test was taken from all three groups, then for the experimental groups, related training programs were implemented in groups and 1 session per week. While the control group did not receive any training, a post-test was taken from all three groups after the completion of the training sessions. It should be explained that due to the spread of the coronavirus and absenteeism in schools, all educational sessions were conducted in virtual space and the tests were designed electronically and made available to the participants. Research instruments include Walland et al. (1992) Academic Belief Questionnaire, Gross and John's Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (2003), Jerusalem Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (1986), Clark Academic Adjustment Scale (1976), and Hayes Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The mindset was the stress reduction (MBSR) of Kabbalah. The research data were analyzed by SPSS-21 software at the descriptive level by frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation indices and at the inferential level by multivariate analysis of covariance and the Bonferroni test.

Results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental groups and the control group in terms of dependent variables (academic belief, emotional regula, tion and academic adjustment) (P <0.001). There is also a significant difference between acceptance and commitment therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy in terms of effectiveness on emotional regulation (P <0.001).

According to the results of this study, both acceptance and commitment-based therapies and mindfulness-based stress reduction therapies increase academic confidence, cognitive reassessment, and academic adjustment, as well as reduce emotional inhibition in students. Acceptance and commitment- based therapy also increase cognitive reassessment and reduce emotional inhibition more than mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy.