The Effectiveness of Adolescent Mindfulness Therapy on Academic Resilience and Academic Optimism in Anxious First-Year High School Students

Adolescent mindfulness therapy significantly improved academic resilience and academic optimism among anxious first-year high school students. In a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design with a two-month follow-up, 34 anxious students were randomly assigned to an experimental group (18 students) receiving ten weekly 90-minute sessions of adolescent-centered mindfulness therapy or a control group (16 students). The therapy, which included mindful eating, purposeful breathing, and conscious walking, showed a substantial impact on academic resilience and academic optimism.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The objective of the current study was to investigate the effectiveness of adolescent mindfulness therapy on the academic resilience and academic optimism in Anxious First-Year High School Students. The research method included a two-month follow-up period, a pretest, posttest, and control group design, and was quasi-experimental. The statistical population of the present study included anxious first-year high school students in Isfahan city in the academic year of 2021-2022. The experimental and control groups were randomly assigned to 34 anxious students, with 18 students in the experimental group and 16 students in the control group, who were selected using the purposive sampling method. The students in the experimental group received adolescent-centered mindfulness therapy during ten weeks in ten 90-minute sessions. The applied questionnaire included Anxiety Questionnaire (AQ), Academic Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ) and Academic Optimism Questionnaire (AOQ). The SPSS-23 software was used to analyze the data from the study using a post hoc Bonferroni test and mixed analysis of variance. Adolescent mindfulness therapy demonstrated a substantial impact on the academic resilience (F=36.67; Eta=0.53; P<0001) and academic optimism (F=46.78; Eta=0.59; P<0001) of anxious students, as indicated by the results. From the research results, it can be inferred that adolescent mindfulness therapy, which employs mindful practices such as conscious eating, purposeful and conscious breathing, and conscious walking, can lead to an increase in the conscious skills of anxious students, thereby increasing their academic resilience and academic optimism.