A Randomized Control Trial to Evaluate the Use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to Increase Academic Performance and Psychological Flexibility in Graduate Students
Six weekly ACT values meetings give grad students a small grade and mindset boost over study tips alone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team randomly split 51 graduate students into two groups. One group got a six-week ACT values class. The other group got study-skills tips. Both met online for 30 minutes each week.
Researchers tracked grades and a short survey on psychological flexibility.
What they found
The ACT group raised their course grades by a small but real amount. They also scored higher on the flexibility survey.
The study-skills group showed no change.
How this fits with other research
Denegri et al. (2025) later used the same ACT ideas with RBTs. They saw a quick bump in pairing skills, but only BST gave lasting mastery. Together the studies show ACT primes behavior, yet you still need hands-on coaching for fluency.
Neely et al. (2021) reviewed telehealth staff training. They found solid evidence for skill-building like this ACT class, but warned that behavior-reduction skills need more data. The 2018 trial sits safely in the “yes, it works” zone.
Mulder et al. (2020) ran a six-session BST workshop for teachers and also saw positive effects. The matching length and design suggest brief weekly training can reliably lift adult professional skills across cultures.
Why it matters
You can add a short values module to any staff or student meeting. It lifts engagement with almost no cost. Pair it with BST if you need mastery, not just motivation.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Graduate students experience high levels of demand in their degree programs, which often results in difficulty maintaining their academic performance and managing their distress. The present study examined the effectiveness of a 6-week values clarification and committed action training program derived from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to increase academic performance and psychological flexibility of graduate students in a behavior analysis and therapy program by comparing a Values intervention group to a Study Tips active treatment control group on measures of academic performance, psychological flexibility, values-driven behavior, and stress. The results suggest that the Values group demonstrated statistically significant improvements in academic performance (t (32) = 1.902, p < 0.05), psychological flexibility (t (32) = 1.895, p < .05), and ratings of the importance of education-related values (t (32) = 2.013, p < .05) compared to the control group, and nonsignificant improvements in reports of consistency with education-related values (t (32) = 0.7204, p > .05) and perceived stress (t (32) = 1.521, p > .05). The Values group also demonstrated a higher score for social validity than the control group following the intervention (t (32) = 2.449, p < .05).
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2018 · doi:10.1007/s40617-018-0252-x