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). Keywords Values clarification. Randomized controlled trial. Graduate students. Psychological flexibility In 2015, there were 2.9 million students enrolled in graduate degree programs in the USA, and within the next 10 years, that number is expected to increase by as much as 12 % (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). While the number of students enrolling in graduate studies is increasing, attrition is a common problem among this population, with varying rates of program completion among programs in different areas of study. For example, attrition in master's and doctorate level psychology-related programs can be as high as 10% of students (Michalski, Cope, & Fowler, 2016). Graduate students' failure to complete their degree programs may be related to the high demands they experience, which can result in various academic and psychological problems.
