Main and Interactional Effects of Defensive styles and Mindfulness on the Educational Achievement of University Students

The present study aimed at investigating the main and interactional effects of defensive styles and mindfulness on the educational achievement of students of Islamic Azad University in Saveh. In this comparative study, the three questionnaires of defensive style, mindfulness and socioeconomic base were used to collect the data. The questionnaires were administered among the students and 60 students were ultimately selected through purposeful sampling method for analyzing the data. Factor analysis and univariate analysis of variance were used and the following findings were indicated:1) there is a significant main effect of students’ defensive style on their educational progress and those with mature defensive styles are significantly higher than the students with immature, neurotistic defensive styles, 2) there is a significant main effect of mindfulness on the educational progress of students and students with higher mindfulness have a considerably higher educational progress than those with lower levels of mindfulness, 3) the effect of defensive style on the students’ educational progress is not influenced by their mindfulness, 4) projection defensive mechanisms, denial, fantasy (immature defensive style), false philanthropy and annulment (neurotistic defensive style) and humor (mature defensive style) were statistically significant . It can be concluded that psychological factors can be as effective as cognitive factors in the educational progress of students.