Aim: The purpose of this study was to examine the effective of the Pennsylvania resilience program training on cognitive appraisal and achievement behaviors among university students.
Method: In this pretest-posttest nonequivalent-group design, 51 undergraduate students at Kharazmi University in experimental and control groups responded to the Cognitive appraisal scale (CAS, Lazarus, and Folkman, 1984) and the motivation strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ, Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The experimental group received 6 resilience training sessions (2 hours a session). Results: The results of multivariate covariance analysis indicated that the resilience program training was effective in increasing cognitive appraisal and achievement behaviors in short term. Conclusion: These findings suggest that resilience program training improve the achievement behaviors of university by letting them: 1) find their personal power (personal feeling, attitudes and beliefs), 2) find and make full use of their external resources (development of security and feeling of protection), 3) master their interpersonal skills and problem solving ability (such as persistence, humor and communication).
