Development and evaluation of cognitive behavioral therapy based online group intervention program for adjustment problems of freshmen

The purpose of this research is to develop an online group intervention program based on a cognitive behavioral approach for the adjustment problems of new university students and to evaluate the effectiveness of this program. The universe of the research consists of Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University preparatory class students. Informed Consent Form and Demographic Information Form prepared with the help of Google form were given to the students. Psychological Symptom Checklist, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21, World Health Organization-5 Well-Being Index and University Life Scale were administered. The sample of the study consisted of 24 participants who were selected according to the scores they got from the inital scores of the questionnares mentioned above. These participants were randomly assigned to the experimental group of 12 people and the control group of 12 people. The online group intervention program based on a cognitive behavioral approach, which consisted of self-concept and self-confidence, social anxiety, communication skills, social skills and test anxiety topics was applied to the experimental group. This program, consisting of eight sessions, was completed in approximately three weeks with one day intervals. At the first stage, no intervention was made in the control group. At the end of the research, the same tools were given to the experimental and control groups again and the scores they got from the data collection tools were compared. For the analysis of the data, 2 (experimental and control groups) X 2 (pretest and posttest) mixed design ANOVA method was used. Along with the analyzes made; the online group intervention program based on a cognitive behavioral approach was found to be effective in relieving the psychological distress of the participants and reducing the scores of depression, anxiety and stress, but it was concluded that it was not effective on their general mental well-being and their level of adaptation to university. Keywords: Cognitive behavioral therapy, communication skills, self-concept, selfconfidence, social anxiety, social skills, test anxiety.