Effectiveness of Empathy Training in Increasing Resilience and Academic Self-Efficacy among High School Students in Zahedan

Self-efficacy, as a motivational factor, increases academic performance and decreases stress. Therefore, identifying factors affecting self-efficacy can play a key role in improving students’ academic achievement and promoting an educational system. In this regard, this study aimed to examine the effectiveness of empathy training in increasing resilience and academic self-efficacy among high school students in Zahedan. This quasi-experimental study followed by a two-group pretest-posttest design. Statistical population of the current study included all male senior high school students in Zahedan in the academic year 2016-2017. A corpus of 30 students was selected using a multistage random sampling method. Data collection tools used to achieve the main objective of the present study were McElroy and Bunting Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (2002) and Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale (2003). Descriptive statistics, like calculating means and standard deviations, and inferential statistics, including univariate analyses of variance, were applied for data analysis. Results of this study demonstrated that mean scores of the experimental group on resilience and academic self-efficacy increased compared to those of the control group. It can be mentioned that empathy training affected resilience and academic self-efficacy among the male high school students in Zahedan; therefore, the results of this study revealed the importance of empathy in students’ communications.

Academic Self-Efficacy, Empathy, Resilience, Students.