Effectiveness of a psycho-education program on learned helplessness and irrational beliefs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a psycho-education program aimed at reducing learned helplessness and irrational beliefs of eight-grade elementary students. The study was an experimental study based on the pre-test-post-test model with control and placebo group. A total of 27 participants, 9 group members in each group, participated in the study. Irrational Beliefs Scale and Attribution Style Questionnaire for Children were used to gather data. The psycho-education program based on cognitive behavioral therapy developed by researchers had been carried out with the experimental group for ten weeks, while a group guidance program focusing on problems in adolescence was run with the placebo group for four weeks. No procedure was applied to the control group. Group comparisons were investigated by two-way ANOVA for repeated measures. According to the results of analysis, there were no significant differences among three groups regarding learned helplessness and irrational beliefs scores, while there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group with regard to irrational scores. The results of the study exhibited that the psycho-education program was effective in decreasing irrational beliefs, but not effective in decreasing learned helplessness of the participants