The Effectiveness of Problem - Solving Skills Training In The Light of Meichenbaum’s Cognitive - Behavioral Method:The Case of Male Students’ Adjustment to Boarding and Ordinary Schools

The aim of the present study is to compare the effect of problem solving skills training on high school students’ adjustment in boarding and ordinary schools. Boy students studying at boarding and ordinary high schools in Bakharz County make up the population of the study (N=1112). First, two boarding and two ordinary schools were randomly chosen; cluster random sampling was also used to determine a sample of students from the schools (N=291) based on the  Krejcie and Morgan’s Table (1970) to answer to the Adjustment Inventory for School Students (AISS) proposed by Sinha and Singh (1993). Second, 30 students from boarding schools and 30 ones from ordinary schools with the highest adjustment score were chosen and then randomly divided into two experiment groups (i.e. boarding and ordinary) and two control groups (each group, N = 15). Afterwards, the experiment group received problem solving skills training based on Meichenbaum’s (2007) method for 8 sessions while the control groups received no training. At the post-test stage, the scores of the four groups were measured again with the same inventory. Results showed that problem solving training based on Meichenbaum’s method helps improve the general adjustment along with social, emotional, and educational aspects of adjustment. Meanwhile, no difference was found between the effect of the training on the students’ general, social, and educational adjustment in the boarding and ordinary schools, whereas there was a significant difference in terms of the emotional adjustment between the boarding and ordinary schools.