The Effectiveness of Appreciation Education on Academic Buoyancy and Cognitive Flexibility in Volleyball Sports Students

This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of appreciation training on academic buoyancy and cognitive flexibility in volleyball students. The research method was semi-experimental with the implementation of pre-test & post-test and with experimental and control groups. The statistical population included all 9th grade female students of one school in Rasht district in the academic year of 2020-2021 in the number of 418 people, out of which 36 female athletes were randomly divided into 2 groups (18 people). The experimental group and 18 people were divided into the control group. Academic buoyancy questionnaires by Dehghanizadeh & Hosseinchari (2011) and cognitive flexibility by Dennis & Vanderwaal (2010) were completed by all the subjects of the two groups in the pre-test and post-test stages. Then, the experimental group was subjected to Emmons and McCullough's (2003) appreciation training intervention for 9 sessions of 90 minutes. While during this period, the control group did not receive any intervention. The data was analyzed using the inferential test of analysis of covariance. The results showed that appreciation training increased the academic buoyancy and cognitive flexibility of female athletes. (P<0.001). Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of appreciation training is useful and effective to increase academic buoyancy and cognitive flexibility in female volleyball athletes.