The Effect of Positive Thinking Skills–Based Psychoeducation on Homesickness Among New Boarding School Students

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of positive thinking skills-based psychoeducation using an outbound method on homesickness among new islamic boarding school students.To achieve this objective, a one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was employed.Prior to the intervention, an initial assessment was conducted, and 35 new students were assigned to participate in the psychoeducational program.The intervention consisted of five sessions delivered over five consecutive days, with each session lasting 90 minutes.Homesickness was measured using an adapted version of the Utrecht Homesickness Scale (UHS), which demonstrated high internal consistency (α = .90).The data were analyzed using a paired sample t-test after the assumption of normality was met (Shapiro-Wilk p = .075).The results indicated that positive thinking skills-based psychoeducation had a significant effect on reducing homesickness among participants, with a significance value of p < .001(p < .05).The findings suggest that integrating cognitive-based psychoeducation with experiential outbound activities can effectively support emotional adjustment in boarding school students.It is expected that educators, school administrators, and practitioners collaborate in implementing structured psychoeducational programs to assist students in coping with transitional challenges in residential educational settings.