Investigating the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Affective Skills Training on Reduction of Violent Behaviors Tendency among Male High School Students

Abstract

This study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-emotional skills on the decrease of high school student' tendency to aggressive behaviors. The design of the study was experimental using a pre-test and post-test method with a control group. The population of the study included male students of Hamedan and Tehran studying in 1391-1392. The sampling in the first step was done through multi-level cluster sampling and in the second step, random substitution was used. Also, to increase the assurance coefficient to control the examinees subsidence, twenty students were considered in each group and were assigned to 4 groups by random substitution sampling. Firstly, the Interpersonal Aggressive Questionnaire was administered to the students. Then, 80 students (40 students in each province) were chosen from among those who were upper than the cut point and were randomly assigned to the control and experimental group. The cognitive-emotional skills program were each performed in 10 sessions (each group session took 90 minutes). The tools used in this research were Interpersonal Aggressive Scales (Straus, 1979), Emotional intelligence questionnaire (Bar-On, 1997), Affective control scale (Williams, Chambless, & Ahrens, 1997), and the second version of Rahim organizational conflict scale (Rahim, 1997). The results of Covariance analysis (ANCOVA) indicated that teaching the cognitive-emotional skills to high school students Makes Increase self-awareness skills, anger management, and problem solving. Also, the results of the study indicated that teaching the cognitive-emotional skills have a positive and significant effect on the decrease of students tendency to aggressive behaviors such as verbal aggressive, practical aggressive of the students. However, the results indicated that teaching the cognitive-emotional skills are effective.