Learning successfully for study and life ("Life"): Teaching young adolescents about minimising the impact of perfectionism on successful learning.

The 5-lesson perfectionism program is based on previous studies that have been described previously in children aged 10-12 (Vekas & Wade, 2017), Trial ID: ACTRN12616000981426, and pilot tested in young gifted adolescents, Trial ID: ACTRN12618000444280. The intervention is delivered in an engaging format with the use of PowerPoint to describe psycho-education to the students, as well as brainstorming activities, small group and whole class discussions, and homework activities. Each participant receives a workbook for the 5 lessons in which they write down answers to questions that are posed in the program i.e., “What are the advantages of making a mistake? What are the disadvantages?” The intervention will be delivered face-to-face by the individual’s main teacher in a group setting (i.e., year 8 and year 9 homegroup classrooms). The teacher will have received a 2-hour training workshop prior to the delivery of the intervention in order to familiarise themselves with the materials. The workshops will be run by a provisional psychologist who is well-versed in the perfectionism field and has received guidance from the principal investigator Professo, an expert in the field. Teachers will be required to adhere to a strict protocol so the intervention is delivered evenly across classrooms. The intervention will be delivered 1x per week for 5 weeks, with each lesson 45-50 minutes in length. The location of the intervention will be in the young person’s high school classroom. Completion of homework activities and amount of time spent on this will be at the participants' discretion and this will be communicated to participants. A brief summary of session content will now be described Session 1: Lesson is about how to learn successfully and avoid the pitfalls of perfection. Small group and class discussion on what they think perfectionism is. Small group and class discussion on advantages and disadvantages of perfectionism. Education on what perfectionism is based on evidence and how it is related to poor mental and poorer academic achievement. Students then watch a YouTube clip on JK Rowlings 10 tips for success and write down the tips in their own words. Small group discussion on what tip resonated with them most. Homework: Create a poster of favourite tip to display in classroom. Session 2: Focuses on 3 elements of good learning. Number 1: Taking time out will improve your performance. Usain Bolt quote is discussed (with the theme being around taking time out and importance of taking a break). Education provided with the importance of taking time out in the context of physical health, and then transferring to academic health. Group task to rate their belief on the quote: The harder you work the better you perform – true/false. Education is provided on Yerkes Dodson Law, with the emphasis on We all have our zone of optimum performance – the amount of work we need to do to do well – beyond this, performance deteriorates and we will burn out. Small group and individual work to name 5 things they like doing just because it is relaxing. Number 2: Making mistakes is good for you. Small group and class discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of making mistakes. Education provided on the different styles of learning, with growth mindset being more advantageous and part of it is making mistakes. Number 3: Celebrating success is good for you. Class brainstorm about how we react when we succeed. Small group activity to brainstorm activities to do to celebrate successes. Homework: Experiment – taking breaks from studying, doing one thing on list to relax, one thing on list to celebrate success, and rate productivity before and after the experiment. Session 3: Self-compassion Review Class discussion on experiment – what did they find? Did productivity increase when they celebrated successes and took breaks? Focus on session 3 is self-compassion. First task: Recall a recent situation when something didn’t go so well. What were your thoughts/feelings/behaviours? Write down, relay in small groups and then ask if anyone would like to share – class discussion. Then introduce self-compassion – class discuss on what they think self-compassion is. Students watch a YouTube video (Power of self-compassion) and are asked to discuss in small groups what they thought and feedback to class. Task individually in-class. Write a letter to a friend who has failed at a test to practice compassion. Homework: Write a letter to self in a self-compassionate way when things have gone wrong, rate mood before and after. Session 4: Review self-compassion letter as a class discussion and look at self-compassion vs. self-criticism. Introduce basketball hypothetical to class (listed below) “Imagine that you are getting coaching sessions to learn to play basketball. This is something you have wanted to do for a long time and are excited and determined to try hard in the lessons. Now imagine that you have lessons under two different coaches: Coach Critic, and Coach Compassion. Coach Critic does not say anything to you when you bounce or throw the ball. However, when you drop the ball or miss a catch, Coach Critic calls you names, such as a “you’re a wimp,” “you’re pathetic,” and “you’re useless.” He says that unless you can play perfectly and unless you are the best, you are a bad person and no one in the team will like you. Coach Compassion is different again. He does not tell you off every time you drop the ball, but instead encourages you and tells you that you are doing well when you catch the ball. He says things like “It is OK to make mistakes because it helps us to learn how to do it better.” He takes time with you at the end of practice and tells you what you did well and what skills you can work on and what can be improved. He gives each player specific skills to work on over the week to make them better.” Ask students individually and then in small groups: Now, which coach would you choose for your friends? Why? Which coach do you think would get a better performance out of your friends? Discuss answers as a class and then provide education on the tripod of balance: we need achievement, threat and self-compassion to be well-rounded. Ask what happens if we remove achievement, threat or self-compassion individually and consequences of this as a class discussion. Classroom activity: Role play. The scenario is “You spent all week studying for a maths test, but you have just received your result back and you have not done as well in the test as you had hoped. Mr/miss self-critical will start, and Mr/miss self-compassionate will be allowed to respond. For example, self-critical voice may say “you’re a loser, you should give up on Maths, if you don’t do well no one will like you” and self-compassionate may respond “you can do it, just keep trying, you will get there, you are good at other things”. Allow classroom responses towards the end of the activity (everybody joins in). Small group activity: Jot down things that will help when feeling self-critical and engage in small group discussion. Homework: let’s practice what we did today in class by turning self-critical thoughts into self-compassionate thoughts by using a journal. Write down self-critical thoughts, what you did to combat them, and how you felt afterwards. There is an example in the workbook if you get stuck. Fun clip: Awareness test YouTube video. Elicits fun with key point: we miss a lot in our lives if we are too narrowly focused and self-critical on ourselves– miss a lot of what’s good/fun; life can become a chore; we lose perspective – we are not just our achievements! Session 5: Social Media and Perfection. Review Homework: Changing critical thoughts into compassionate thoughts – what did people find? Small group discussion: What impact does social media have on trying to be perfect? Classroom to watch Social Media and Perfection video – small group and class discussion on key points elicited from that video. • What are the main messages of the video? • Does your real life differ from your online life? How is it different? Why? • How can this ’perfect ideal’ on social media be problematic? Small group activity: Review the 5 sessions: what they found most helpful and key messages that stuck. Turn into class discussion. Homework: An activity to work on until next week when we meet again, is to take a photo of something ‘real’ that happened to you during the week and something you would never post online on social media. You can be as funny and as creative as you like! For example, a ‘post-selfie’ run, perhaps an outfit gone wrong, messy hair when you wake up in the morning but make it as personalised to your ‘real life’ as possible. Print out the photo and stick it in the Instagram template and feel free to add a funny caption. Next week, we will hang them up in the classroom to always have a reminder of funny/not so funny things that happen in our day-to-day lives and to combat the ‘perfect’ life that is projected on social media. Strategies to monitor adherence: Teachers go around and ensure that students fill in workbook, but participation in out of class activities (i.e., homework) is optional. Session attendance monitored by teacher. Almost all of the educational materials in this intervention were designed specifically for the study. The exception to this is that four YouTube videos are watched in-session. JK Rowlings 10 steps to success - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvMtUuedLwU&t=2s Awareness Test - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA Social Media and Perfection - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EFHbruKEmw&t=5s The Power of Self Compassion - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTQP7XzDxjI&t=85s