Applied Psychology
Year:2019 | Volume:13 | Issue:2 (50) |Papers Count:8

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Positive Psychology Intervention training on enhancement of wellbeing, academic buoyancy and academic achievement in students. Method: A quasiexperimental method was used with control group and pre-test, post-test and one-month follow-up. The population consisted of 360 female secondary third grade school students in the academic year 2015-16 in the Charosa district of the City of Kohgiluyeh western Iran. Using a multi-stage cluster sampling method, 12 girls' high schools were selected. Of these, two high schools namely, Umm-e-Kulthum and Khadijeh-e-Kobra and from each high school one class was selected and 48 students who fulfilled the necessary research entrance criteria were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. Data collection tools were as follows: Hoseinchari and DehghaniZadeh’ s (2012) Academic Buoyancy Scale, Ryff’ s (1989) Psychological well-being inventory, the grade point average (GPA) and Savajs' Positive Psychology Intervention Program (2011) which included 11 weekly sessions of 60-minutes duration. The intervention program was carried out with the experimental group only. Data was analyzed using mixed variance analysis with repeated measures design Results: Results showed that Positive Psychology Intervention training had a significant effect on wellbeing (F= 16. 71, P= 0. 001), and academic buoyancy (F= 16. 21, P= 0. 001), and that this effect remained stable after the follow-up phase. However, the intervention did not have any effect on the improvement of students' academic achievement. Conclusion: Positive Psychology Intervention has the necessary efficacy to enhance wellbeing and academic buoyancy. Hence, it can be used as an effective intervention by therapists to develop psychological positive characteristics in adolescents as well as college students.

Aim: Research aim was to determine the effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Training on improving social, emotional and educational adjustment and social quality of students with learning disabilities. Methods: Research method was quasi-experimental with control, experimental group and pretest, posttest, and a 2 months follow up. The statistical population consisted of 497 third to sixth grade female and male primary school students with a variety of learning disabilities who were referred to the Center for Learning Disabilities of Bushehr province’ s Department of Education during the 2017-2018 school year. Of these, using convenience sampling and considering the requirements of the research project, 148 students were short-listed in the first stage, and of these, 40 students were selected and assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The measurement tools were Singha and Sing Compatibility Questionnaire 1993 and Fellner, Lease & Philips Social Competence Scale 1990. Questionnaires were administered to both groups in three phases. The experimental group went through eight ninety-minute sessions of Emotion Regulation Training, once a week using the method developed by Allen, McHugh and Barlow 2009. Data was analyzed using mixed variance analysis with repeated measures design. Results: Findings showed that Emotion Regulation Training has a significant effect on improving social adjustment (F= 4. 218, P= 0. 025), educational adjustment (F= 5. 802, P= 0. 002), emotional adjustment (F= 5. 472, P= 0. 036), and social adequacy (F= 5. 463, P= 0. 015) of students with learning disabilities, and this effect remains unchanged in the two-month follow-up phase. Conclusion: Since Emotion Regulation Training helps improve the individuals’ interactions with peers and increases their awareness, acceptance and emotional expression, such training can be used as an effective intervention method to improve social, emotional and educational adjustment and social adequacy of students with various learning disabilities and also students with similar disabilities.

Aim: This study aims to determine the efficacy of drug therapy in comparison with Neurological Feedback vs a combination of both on the memory of children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: The method was quasi-experimental with control group and pre-test, post-test, and three a three month follow-up. The statistical population included 118 children aged six to eleven years with ADHD who were referred to the Shahed and Isargar Center in South East of Tehran in winter 2017. From this population, 80 children who received low scores in 4th edition of Wechsler Intelligence Memory Test, 2003 and had met research criteria were selected and randomly divided into three experimental and one control groups. The experimental groups underwent medication therapy with Ritalin tablets, Lubar’ s (2013) Neurological Feedback Program, and combination therapy in 25 sessions of 40 minutes twice a week. Results: Results showed that medication therapy (F= 23. 51, P= 0. 001), Neurological Feedback (F= 30. 20, P= 0. 001) and combination therapy (F= 42, P= 0. 001) had a significant incremental effect the memory of children with ADHD. However comparisons of treatments showed that combination therapy had a greater effect than the other two treatments, and this effect remained stable for all three treatments at the follow up period. Conclusion: Since combination therapy leads to increased memory of the children with ADHD and on the other hand, it includes both drug therapy and neurological feedback; hence, it can be considered as a more effective treatment than other treatments in increasing the memory of children with ADHD.

Aim: The aim of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of Computerized Cognitive Rehabilitation (CCR) on working memory, sustained attention, and math performance in children with autism spectrum disorder. Method: The study method was quasi-experimental with pretest/ post-test/follow-up design and the statistical population was estimated to be 180 children, included all children with autism spectrum disorder in Tehran. These were referred to “ Neda e Asr” , “ Beh Ara” and “ Second of April” centers during the years 2017-2018. Among them, 24 children with moderate to high performance, were selected using convenient sampling due to including criteria and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Ravens Progressive Matrices 1938, was used to examine participants' belonging to the normal range of intelligence and then Iran Key Math Diagnostic Test 1998 and Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery 1980 were played for both groups in three consecutives of pretest, post-test and follow-up and the Captain’ s Log Mind Power Builder Manual 2000 was presented to the experimental group in 16 sessions of 60 minutes twice a week and data were analyzed using mixed variance analysis with repeated measurements. Results: The results showed that the interaction effect of the intra-subject for all three variables include mathematical Performance (F= 7. 66, P= 0. 002), working memory (F= 22. 58, P= 0. 001) and constant attention (F= 9. 16, P= 0. 001) were significant. Conclusion: Such findings can confirm the possibility of taking advantage of technology to improve the cognitive functions of people with autism spectrum disorder while significantly reducing therapeutic costs. Computerized Captain’ s Log Mind Power Builder Manual can also be an appropriate instrument to teach such cognitive abilities to children with autism spectrum disorder.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine the mediating role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in the relationship between personality features with somatization symptoms. Method: The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population of the study consisted of all female students of Islamic Azad University, Ayatollah Amoli Science and Research Branch in 2016-2017 in 1150 individuals in Amol city among which 285 students were selected by multi-stage sampling. In this way, two faculties of humanities and basic sciences were chosen (from the former, faculties of Law and Accounting and from the latter, Pure and Applied Chemistry were selected. Four classes from each faculty were selected amounting to 250 students (15 students for each of the variables in the study). The study tools included NEO-Five Factor Inventory by Costa & McCrae 1985; Cognitive Emotion Regulation by Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven (2001) and symptom checklist 90 revised by Derogatis, Rickels & Rock (1976). After removal of three distortion questionnaires and one outlier, data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling method. Results: The results of this study showed that among the personality traits, only the indirect path coefficients between extraversion (β =-0. 106, P= 0. 02) and conscientiousness (β =-0. 132, P= 0. 02) with somatization symptoms were negative and significant. Among the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies, only path coefficient of negative strategies with somatization symptoms (β = 0. 470, P= 0. 001) was positive and significant. Conclusion: Positive Cognitive Emotion Regulation training is recommended for coping with environmental events and modifying personality manifestations in people with somatization symptoms.

Aim: The study purpose was to determine the psychometric properties of the motivational structure questionnaire in adolescents. Method: Research method was correlational and the statistical population included all female and male adolescents from second secondary education in Tehran's 22nd district to 177000 people in the 2016-2017 academic year among whom based on Comrey & Lee (2016) suggestion 426 were selected using multi-stage sampling method. In the first stage, three direction, the north, center and south of Tehran map, in the second stage, three regions, 1, 5 and 18 of each direction and in the last stage of each region randomly Shahid Motahari and Somayeh High Schools from District 1, Shahid Amoyan and Ayin Tarbiat from District 5 and Shahid Mofeghian and Farzanegan from 18 District were selected. The research tool was the Personal Concerns Inventory by Cox & Klinger (2004). After removal of 6 distortion questionnaires and 2 outliers, 418 student data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis. Results: The results showed that fitness indices of confirmatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor fitness indicators with the exception of the Chi-squared which was equal to 357. 58 in 0. 001 significant level, support the pattern of two components of adaptive and nonadaptive motivational structures and Cronbach's alpha coefficients for adaptive and non-adaptive motivational structures is respectively 0. 73 and 0. 77. Conclusion: According to the results, the motivational structure scale has appropriate validity and reliability, and it can be used to measure the motivational structure of students, as well as to prevent and detect cognitive, emotional and behavioral damages in schools.