Effectiveness of the Attributional Retraining Program on Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies and Academic Resilience among University Students

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine examine the effectiveness of attributional retraining program on students’ emotion cognitive regulation strategies and academic resilience. In this quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest nonequivalent-group design and follow up stage, 41 undergraduate students at Shahid Beheshti University in the experimental group and control group, before and after the training, responded to Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven Emotion Cognitive Regulation Questionnaire and Martin & Marsh Academic Resilience Scale. The experimental group received 7 resilience training sessions (2 hours a session). The results of multivariate covariance analysis, in the short term and long term, indicated that attributional retraining program was effective in increasing adaptive cognitive coping strategies (including acceptance, positive reappraisal positive refocusing, refocus on planning, and perspective taking), and also it was effective in decreasing non-adaptive cognitive coping strategies (including on self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing and other-blame). Also, results of univariate covariance analysis showed that attributional retraining program was effective in increasing academic resilience in the shrt term as well as long term. Generally, these findings suggest that attributional retraining program was effective in improving the resilience of identifying and making optimum their personal power (personal feeling, attitudes and beliefs), find and make full use of their external resources (development of safety and feeling of protection), and mastering their interpersonal skills and problem solving ability (such as persistence, humor and communication).

Keywords

• attributional retraining program
• emotion cognitive regulation strategies
• academic resilience
• University Students