The effectiveness of compassion therapy training on students' academic motivation and psychological distress

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of compassion therapy training on academic motivation and psychological distress of students. The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all the male students in the second year of high school in Natanz city in the academic year of 1401-1402, 30 people were selected by the available sampling method and randomly placed in two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the educational intervention of compassion therapy in 8 sessions of 90 minutes and once a week. Data collection tools included the Academic Motivation Questionnaire (AMQ) by Wallerand & et al (1992) and the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) by Byrne & et al (2007). The data collected in the present study were analyzed by multivariate covariance analysis. The findings showed that by controlling the pre-test effect, there is a significant difference at the 0.01 level between the average of the post-test academic motivation and psychological distress in the two experimental and control groups. The findings indicate that compassion therapy can increase academic motivation and reduce psychological distress in male students.