امیر پناه علی

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of metacognition and problem solving training on teaching-learning strategies awareness of gifted high school male students of 10th grade in Ardabil. This research is a quasi-experimental research, with a pre-test/ post-test design. 127 gifted high school male students of Ardabil were participated in the study as the statistical population in 2017-18 academic year. Sixty of these students were selected through simple random sampling. Before starting the training programs, three groups were tested by the Weinstein Teaching-Learning Strategies Questionnaire first developed by Weinstein and Schultz (1987). Metacognitive training program was taught for the first experimental group, and problem solving skills program was taught for the second experimental group; each training program consisted of eight two-hour sessions and the control group did not receive any kind of training. Pre-test and post-test results were analyzed using MANOVA. The results showed that both metacognitive and problem solving training enhance teaching and learning skills and that metacognitive training is more effective in terms of test strategies, attitudes, focus, and time management. Also, similar effects were achieved in terms of information processing and selection of the main idea, anxiety, motivation, self-examination, study guide in the two groups. In conclusion, metacognitive training was proven to be more effective than problem solving training.

Objective: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral play therapy and resilience-based play therapy on anxiety, executive functioning behaviors, and emotional expression in children aged 6 to 8 years undergoing dental treatment. Methods: The current research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test design, including a control group and a two-month follow-up period. All children aged 6 to 8 visiting specialty dental clinics in Isfahan during the first six months of 2021 constituted the research population. Forty-five children were selected using purposive sampling based on inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to three equal groups of fifteen. Data collection was carried out using the Revised Children's Anxiety Scale - Short Form (Ahlen et al., 2018), the Emotion Expression Questionnaire - Child Form (Penza-Clyve & Zeman, 2002), and the Executive Functioning Questionnaire (Gioia et al., 2000). Cognitive-behavioral play therapy sessions were conducted based on the protocol by Hall, Kaduson, and Schaefer (2002), and resilience-based play therapy sessions followed the protocol by Nikneshan et al. (2019), each lasting for eight weekly sessions of 60 minutes. However, the control group did not receive these interventions. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and mixed ANOVA with SPSS software, version 26. Findings: Results indicated that the mean scores of executive functioning behaviors and their dimensions significantly improved in the experimental groups at post-test compared to the control group, and these improvements remained stable at follow-up (p < 0.05). Moreover, therapeutic interventions (both cognitive-behavioral and resilience-based play therapy) significantly improved scores on anxiety and emotional expressiveness compared to the control group. Additionally, post hoc Bonferroni tests showed that cognitive-behavioral play therapy was more effective than resilience-based play therapy in reducing anxiety scores and increasing skills in emotional expression and executive functioning in children undergoing dental treatment (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These findings further clarify the role of play therapy in children undergoing dental treatment and highlight the necessity of using therapeutic approaches derived from the cognitive-behavioral model to modulate symptoms in these children.