The Effectiveness of Teaching Emotion Regulation Strategies in Academic Engagement, Academic Help-Seeking, and Academic Procrastination among Female Senior High School Students

This study sought to investigate the effectiveness of teaching emotion regulation strategies in academic engagement, academic help-seeking, and academic procrastination among female senior high school students in Gorgan. To this end, 30 students were selected through purposive sampling method and then were randomly assigned to an experimental (N=15) and a control group (N=15). The experimental group received training in Gross (2002) emotion regulation strategies package. It should be noted that both groups were pre- and post-tested using School Engagement Questionnaire (Fredricks, Blumenfeld & Paris, 2004), Academic Help-Seeking Scale (Ryan & Pintrich, 1997) and Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). Data were analyzed using ANCOVA and MANCOVA. Results showed that teaching emotion regulation strategies had a positive effect on academic help-seeking and procrastination of female students. Regarding the components of academic engagement, increase in behavioral engagement (F=10.95, P=0.003) and emotional engagement (F=6.97, P=0.014) was significant; however, increase in cognitive engagement was not significant (F=3.15, P=0.088). As to the components of academic help-seeking, increase in refusing help was not significant (F=3.65, P=0.06), while increase in accepting help was significant (F=4.60, P=0.04). With regard to academic procrastination, decrease in all three components of exam preparation (F=175.65, P=0.01), homework preparation (F=37.22, P=0.01), and final preparation (F=28.54, P=0.01) was significant. As a result, teaching emotion regulation strategies can possibly increase learning-related motivational variables.