Educational Psychology

Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of process and product mental simulation on cognitive flexibility, academic procrastination, and academic performance of second-year high school students. This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all second-year high school students in Badrud in 2024, from which 30 people were selected using a non-random sampling method. Then, the subjects in the experimental group received 8 one-hour sessions of training on the process and product mental simulation protocol. The cognitive flexibility questionnaires of Dennis and VanderWaal (2010), the academic procrastination of Solomon and Rothblom (1984), and the academic performance of Taylor and Pham (1999) were used to evaluate the subjects. The collected data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance using SPSS-27 software. The research findings showed that process and product mental simulation had a positive and significant effect on cognitive flexibility and academic performance of second-year high school students (P<0.05). However, this intervention did not have a significant effect on academic procrastination in this group of students (P<0.05). It was concluded that the process and product mental simulation training program can be used as a beneficial intervention to improve the cognitive flexibility and academic performance of second-year high school students.