The Effect of Positive Thinking Intervention on Academic Burnout and Academic Engagement among Elementary School Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of positive thinking intervention on academic burnout and academic engagement of fifth-grade elementary school students in Kerman, Iran. The research method was semi-experimental. At first, 100 students were given the questionnaire on academic burnout and academic engagement. Subsequently, 40 students who had weak to moderate academic engagement and high academic burnout were selected as the study sample and were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. In this study, two standard questionnaires on academic burnout and academic engagement and also a standard package of positive thinking interventions were used. The participants of the experimental group were trained for the eight sessions of 90 minutes, while the control group did not participate in positive thinking classes during this period. Before starting the training, a pre-test was administered to both experimental and control groups. The results showed that positive thinking training had a significant effect on students' academic burnout and their academic engagement. Therefore, it can be concluded that teaching positive thinking to students is especially important for positive relationships with others with the help of features such as establishing warm and reliable relationships, high empathy, and interpersonal intimacy. Also, teaching positive thinking in students removes negative thoughts and cultivates positive thoughts, increases the energy level and capability of students, and provides the possibility for them to turn failure into success and threat into opportunity by getting rid of negative thinking.