The Effectiveness of Empathy Training on Social Adjustment and School Belonging in Elementary Sixth-Grade Students

1. Assistant Professor, Alzahra University, Women Research Center, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran *Corresponding author email: m.safara@alzahra.ac.ir 2. M.A. in Educational Psychology, Islamic Azad University of Tabas, Tabas Branch, Tabas, Iran Introduction Many researchers now agree that most social behaviors are learned. School is the most important factor in the socialization of students. Therefore, one of the major goals of education is to guide students to social interaction and build effective relationships with others. Therefore, providing a suitable environment, schools can be a factor in the development of adjustment in students (Golmohammadnejad, Bahrami, & Rahimi, 2016). In this regard, one of the signs of socialization is social adjustment. Social adjustment has been put forth as the most important indicator of mental health and is one of the topics that has attracted the attention of many psychologists and educators in particular. There are many definitions of social adjustment; it has been described as synonymous with social skills, which is the ability to interact with others in a way to be acceptable in the tradition of the society (Robinson & Robinson, 2009). Social adjustment is the most important aspect of any person’s social development, which is effective in interacting with others, as well as a person’s career and academic success (Basir Shabestari, Shirin Beck, Sefidi, & Sherkat Daliri, 2013). Factors such as educational Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of empathy training on social adjustment and belonging to the school in elementary school students. The present study was conducted as a semi-experimental two-group pretest-posttest design. The statistical population was all sixth grade elementary school students in Tabas city in the academic year of 2016-2017. The study sample was 30 people who were selected by cluster random sampling method. The tools used to collecting data were: Belonging to school inventory and Bell’s adjustment inventory For data analysis, Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and Univariate and Multivariate analysis of covariance were used (p < 0.01). The findings indicated that the mean of the experimental group in the components of social adjustment and belonging to the school increased compared to the control group (p <0.05). Therefore, it can be concluded that empathy training has been effective in increasing social adjustment and students’ belonging to the school.