The Effect of Mindfulness Training on Improving Educational Hope and Motivation in Junior High School Girls in Tehran

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Master’s of Women Studies, Department of Women and Family Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, AlZahra University, Tehran, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Women and Family Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, AlZahra University, Tehran, Iran

3 Ph.D. student of medical education, Educational Development Center, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Numerous educational problems such as low interest in learning, educational decline and increasing dropout are attributed to the lack of educational motivation and educational hope. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on improving hope and motivation in students. The current research was a quasi-experimental study with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the research was all first grade female students of Sotoudeh Girls' Educational Complex in the educational year 2018-2019 in Tehran. Twenty students were randomly allocated to an experimental and a control group. The research tools included educational motivation questionnaire of Abdekhodaei, Seif, Karimi and Bibangard and the educational hope questionnaire of Campbell and Kwon (2001). The experimental group received the mindfulness training package in eight 2-hour sessions. The obtained data were analyzed by ANCOVA. The results showed that mindfulness training had a positive and significant effect on educational hope and improving educational motivation. Accordingly, it is recommended to use mindfulness training to improve hope and motivation in students.
Introduction                                                      
Numerous educational problems such as low interest in learning, educational decline and increasing dropout are currently attributed to the lack of educational motivation and educational hope. (Bask et al., 2013, pp. 511-528). It is important to look at the recent statistics of educational attrition in this field; the statistics of the Ministry of Education reveals a drop in education of 1.1% elementary schools, 6.4% in junior high school and 8% in senior high school in the academic year 2017-2018, which is significant (Vaziri et al., 2019, p. 3).
Educational motivation, as an internal force, leads learners to comprehensively evaluate their performance based on the highest standards, strive for success in performance, and enjoy the pleasure associated with success in performance. When students are motivated, they tend to complete their educational assignments to reach a certain level of expertise, skill and success (Omidian et al., 2018, pp. 141-159). Educational hope pertains to the educational goals that students choose for themselves, the paths for achieving the goals, as well as the factors that make students remain steadfast on this path (Masters-Wag et al., 2022, p. 1-14; Ito et al., 2022, pp. 1458-1468). Mindfulness is a state of inner peace that can be achieved by focusing on breathing, proper meditation, and clearing the mind of any external influences.
Few domestic and foreign studies have focused on educational hope, or the effect of mindfulness training on educational hope. Hence, the main purpose of this research is to evaluate the effect of the educational package of mindfulness training on improving educational hope and motivation in junior high school students.
Method
This quasi-experimental study used a pretest-posttest design with random assignment of the participants into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group was given mindfulness training. Then the questionnaires related to the research variables (educational motivation and educational hope) were distributed among both groups to analyze and compare the results of the experimental and control groups.
The statistical population of the research was all the 7th grade female students of Sotoudeh Girls Educational Complex in the educational year 2018-2019 in Tehran. For this purpose students were randomly divided into two groups of 20 people.
The measurement tools in the present study were: To measure educational motivation, Abdekhodaei, Seif, Karimi and Biabangard 's questionnaire(2008, pp. 5-20) was used, which was made with 53 questions. To measure educational hope the educational hope questionnaire of Campbell and Kwon (2001).  was used. Mindfulness training protocol of eight 2-hour sessions was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Levine's test and the Wilk-Shapiro’s test were used to check the normality of the data distribution.
Results
The results show that educational motivation increased in the experimental group from 145.13 at pre-test to 19.30 at post-test. Furthermore, educational hope increased from 32.66 at pre-test to 40.06 at post-test. Meanwhile, no significant changes were observed in the control group. The results of the Shapiro-Wilk test showed normal distribution of data in both experimental and control groups.
Therefore, at the 95% confidence interval, the assumption of homogeneity of variance is accepted in the two experimental and control groups for the three research variables.
Test of hypotheses:
ANCOVA showed that after removing the effect of pre-test, mindfulness training had a significant effect on educational hope (P<0.05). Also, 51.8% of the dispersion of students' educational hope scores was explained by mindfulness. Also, after removing the pre-test effect, mindfulness training had a significant effect on educational motivation (P<0.05). Also, 52.5% of the dispersion of educational motivation scores was explained by mindfulness.
Discussion and conclusion
The result of the first hypothesis showed that mindfulness training had a significant effect on educational hope. This finding is in line with the research findings of Ghahremanloo et al. (1399, pp. 1-8), Ataiee et al. (1398, 176-199), Omidian et al. (1398, 141-159), Soltani (1397, 171-185). ), Shah Moradi Tabatabai and Ansari Shahidi (2016, p. 18), Özdemir et al. (2022, p. 193-183), Satici and Satici (2022, p. 32), Strohmaier et al. (2022, p. 1-12), and Xie & Guo (2022, p. 1-9) and Güldal and Satan (2020, p. 1-12).
The result of the second hypothesis showed that mindfulness training had a significant effect on improving educational motivation. This finding is in line with the results of the research of Ghahremanloo et al. (2019, p. 1-8), Liu et al. (2022, p. 32); Dust et al. (2022, p. 221), Sawyer et al. (2022, p. 240) and Miralles-Armenteros et al. (2021, p. 3-13).

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References

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The Journal of New Thoughts on Education
Volume 19, Issue 4 - Serial Number 70
January 2024
Pages 269-286

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