The Effect of Health-centered Academic Lifestyle Training on Student’s Academic Stability and Hope

The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of health-centered academic lifestyle training on student’s academic stability and hope. The research design was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest control group design. The statistical population in this study comprised all elementary students of the fourth to the sixth grade in Boroujerd city who were studying online in the academic year 2020-2021. Convenience sampling was used to select 36 students who were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The participants filled out Academic Stability Questionnaire and Academic Hope Questionnaire. The experimental group received training for a healthy-oriented academic lifestyle for 12 sessions. After the training course, post-test was performed in both groups. The collected data were analyzed using multivariate ANOVA. The results showed training health-oriented academic lifestyle had a significant effect on the experimental group.
Introduction
Students are the future-makers of any society, and educational years are supposed to develop their identity and personality. Educational achievement in this period might guarantee their future achievements (Gadampoor, Yousefvand, and Radmehr 2017). Therefore, addressing their related issues is considerably important. Of the most important issues, one can mention are stability and hope for learning. A study revealed that stability and the corresponding components were in accordance to educational achievements (Duckworth and Gross 2014). Stability is a ladder for success and turning one's dreams into reality that results in accomplishing challenging goals despite the barriers and weaknesses regardless of the individual’s intelligence. Stable high school students are more likely to graduate and less likely to quit studying or working (Duckworth, Quinn & Tskuyama). Therefore, schools should dedicate most of their deliberate efforts to improve stability in students. Studies also revealed that hope for learning is a reliable predictor for scientific achievements and a crucial need for students. Hope enables students to cope with their problems by focusing on success and achieving their goals (Ebrahimi Qiri 2013). Academic hope refers to the pertinent educational goals that students choose for themselves, the means of reaching these goals and also the factors which cause student's ability in this way (Ebrahim Ghiri 2013). It appears that a health-centered academic lifestyle can help students do more educational assignments, attain more educational achievement, experience fewer negative emotions through increasing levels of achievement which increase academic stability and hope. Sofar no research has investigated the effect of health-centered academic lifestyle on academic stability and hope among elementary students; however, similar studies on other populations revealed that student’s academic stability and hope can be affected by health-centered academic lifestyle.
Methodology
This study aimed to investigate the effect of health-centered academic lifestyle training on student’s academic stability and hope. The present study used quasi-experimental method with a pretest post-test control group design. The statistical population of the study includes all the students of the fourth to sixth grade in Boroojerd city elementary schools in academic year of 2020-2021 who were studying online using Shad application. Convenience sampling was used to select four elementary schools that agreed to cooperate with the researcher and that the students had continuous access to Shad application. Then, one school was selected from the four schools based on their better cooperation and regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected school had six classes, among which one was randomly selected as the experimental group (n=18) and another as the control group (n=18). The inclusion criteria included being an elementary student of the fourth-sixth grade, having access to Shad application, and having access and ability to use a smart phone. The exclusion criterion was students’ unwillingness to participate in the study. Before the study, a pretest was given to the both experimental and control groups. The experimental group received a health-centered academic lifestyle program training course while the control group followed their routine curriculum. Finally, the data were analyzed using multivariance analysis of covariance and in SPSS 22 statistical software.
Results
Table 2 shows the results of multivariate analysis of covariance for post-test scores with pre-test control of research-dependent variables (academic stability and academic hope). 
As shown in Table 2, health-centered academic lifestyle training has a significant effect on academic stability and academic hope of students in the experimental group. To examine the point of difference, univariate analysis of covariance in multivariate text was used.
As can be seen in Table 3, there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in dependent variables.
Discussion and conclusion
The results showed that health-centered academic lifestyle has a significant effect on increasing academic stability. This finding is consistent with the findings of Rafi Fatana (2019) and Ebadi, Zare Hosseinabadi and Zare Hosseinabadi (2019) and Saeedi.  Saeedi and Farahbakhsh (2016) showed that lifestyle and academic performance are related to each other. This finding is also consistent with a study by Sullivan et al. (2021) which showed that people with higher stability had higher scores in healthy lifestyle. These findings can be explained as academic stability means how to achieve long-term goals by overcoming obstacles and challenges. A health-centered academic lifestyle is associated with stability in learning. Another finding of this study was that a health-centered academic lifestyle increases students' academic hope. This finding is consistent with the results of Hedayat and Sadeghzadeh, 2016; Mortazavi Emami et al., 2017; Azimi Khoi and Navabi Nejad, 2016. In general, these findings can be explained in that learners who are optimistic about the future and the results of their activities are deeply involved in academic activities and assignments, so they are more likely to experience positive emotions in educational settings. Students with a health-centered academic lifestyle are less likely to experience negative emotions such as academic frustration in the face of adversity (Martin, 2013). Therefore, considering that academic stability and hope are teachable, it is recommended that all experts and education officials hold workshops to familiarize teachers and learners with these concepts. It is also suggested that continuous education of health-centered academic lifestyle be provided with the aim of improving students’ performance.