Cognitive Distortions and Its Relation to some Variables of University Students

The aim of the current research is to build a scale of cognitive distortions among university students, to identify the level of cognitive distortions among university students, and to know the significance of statistical differences in cognitive distortions according to gender, specialization and stage of study. The current research is limited to students of Salah al-Din University in Erbil governorate in its various faculties and who are continuing in morning studies according to the variables (gender, specialization, academic stage) for the academic year (2020-2021). The current research relied on the following procedures to obtain the scale: 1-A scale of cognitive distortions was developed and built according to the Beak model, consisting of (7) dimensions: (dual thinking, overgeneralization, personalism, compulsions and imperatives, false interpretation, and unfair comparison). 2-Presenting the items (cognitive distortions) to a group of experts in education and psychology to extract the apparent validity of the cognitive distortions scale as well as extracting the construction echo for them. 3-The research sample included (500) male and female students who were chosen randomly. 4- Analysis of the scale items using the upper and lower group method. 5- Extracting the stability of the scale by the re-test method, as it reached on the scale (0.83) and in the half-segmentation method for the cognitive distortions scale it reached (0.93) and by the Cronbach’s Alpha method for the scale reached (0.94) After applying the cognitive distortions scale to the sample members and analyzing their data statistically by using (SPSS), the following results were reached: 1- The sample members had a level of defined distortions. 2- There are no statistically significant differences in cognitive distortions among the university students according to the two variables (gender and specialization), and there are statistically significant differences according to the academic stage variable. In light of the research results, a number of conclusions were reached and a number of recommendations and suggestions were presented.