The Effectiveness of Beliefs and State Metacognitive Training on Students' Academic Motivation

Aim: The purpose of the present study was to analyze the effectiveness of beliefs and state metacognitive training on students' academic motivation.
Methods: The research method was the quasi-experimental accompanied with pretest-posttest design, control group and a follow-up. The statistical population included female students (2202 individuals) of University of Birjand. Through convenience sampling method and by considering criteria such as average of 15 or higher, lack of psychological disease, avoiding the use of antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs and students’ willingness for participation, 32 students were selected as study sample and were assigned to experimental and control group based on the research criteria. Salarifar metacognition training package (2012) was applied for intervention method and Vallerand academic motivation scale (1992) was also applied for data collecting. To control pretest effect, data were analyzed utilizing multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA).
Results: The results showed that the intervention program has a significant effect on increasing intrinsic (p <0/01, F=7/94) and extrinsic (p <0/01, F=6/72) academic motivation and this improvement was maintained at follow up, however, it had no effects on academic amotivation.
Conclusion: This training package is capable of increasing effective metacognitive and decreasing ineffective ones. Therefore, it can be used for enhancing students’ academic motivation.