Comparing the Effectiveness of Positive, Resilience and Mindfulness Training Packages on Students' Academic Well-Being

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of positive psychotherapy training, Pennsylvania resilience, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on students’ academic well-being. A controlled pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted with a two-month follow-up. The statistical population included all third-year male students in Shahrekord public middle schools during the school year 2020-2021. Using the available sampling method, Sixty people were selected and randomly divided into four fifteen people experimental and control groups. Each of the experimental groups underwent six sessions, held twice weekly, of the Pennsylvania Resilience Program (Seligman et al., 2009), positive psychotherapy (Seligman et al., 2013), or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Segal et al., 2012). The controls did not receive any intervention during the same period. Tuominen-Soini et al.’s (2012) academic well-being Questionnaire constituted the research instrument. The data were analyzed using a mixed model analysis of variance. The results revealed a significant effect of positive psychotherapy training, Pennsylvania resilience, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on academic well-being on the scales of school value ) F= 20/558), school burnout (F= 29/52), academic satisfaction (F= 11/403), school work engagement (F= 8/608) and the stability of these programs in effect was in the follow-up phase (P<=0.05), but there was no significant difference between the three types of intervention compared to each other. Results show that all three interventions are effective in strengthening the learners' motivation, progress, and academic well-being by feeding coping resources and strengthening the mental strength of the learners and their psychological capital.