Comparison of the effectiveness of face-to-face and virtual psychoeducational interventions based on the theory of acceptance and commitment on the responsibility of adolescents in the post-Corona period

Abstract

Background and Objectives: School closures and home quarantines due to the spread of infectious diseases such as Covid-19 have affected the physical and mental health of adolescents. Adolescence is a period of growth in which intimate relationships are very important. In today's societies, the role of family and school in the development of students' personality is a decisive and fundamental one because with the complexity of social and cultural issues and the advancement of technology, the effectiveness of this role in the development of personality has decreased to some extent. Corona virus and teenagers living at home have also fueled this issue. One of the issues of education that has a decisive role in the performance and morale of people is the principle of responsibility. Research shows that accountability can be promoted using effective intervention methods. One of the appropriate interventions in this field is group psycho-educational interventions, which is neither mere education nor mere counseling; in this research, psychoeducational group interventions were implemented through one of the cognitive and behavioral therapy methods called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).Methods: This research was semi-experimental due to the existence of the experimental group and the control group of the pre-test-post-test design. The statistical population in this research included all first secondary level male students who studied in the public schools of Arak in the academic year of 2021-2022. The group (in-person test, virtual test and control) were randomly placed. The data required for this research were collected by the responsibility scale of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) (1978). The data were analyzed using SPSS 24 software and multivariate covariance analysis.Findings: The results showed that face-to-face group psychoeducational interventions based on acceptance and commitment were effective on teenagers' responsibility after the Covid-19 pandemic (P<0.05). Virtual group psychoeducational interventions based on acceptance and commitment were also effective on teenagers' responsibility after the Covid-19 pandemic (P<0.05) and there was a significant difference between face-to-face and virtual group psychoeducational interventions in terms of the effectiveness based on acceptance and commitment on the responsibility of teenagers after the Covid-19 pandemic.Conclusion: The findings of this research indicated the effectiveness of face-to-face and virtual group psychoeducational interventions based on acceptance and commitment theory on increasing responsibility in teenagers in the post-corona era (P<0.01). Therefore, it is suggested that school counselors and therapists in working with students get help from the approach based on acceptance and commitment as a suitable group psychological educational approach to increase their level of psychological adaptation and responsibility.

Keywords

• acceptance and commitment
• responsibility
• adolescents
• post corona