Positive education is essential to lifelong learning and development. Positive learning environments where the happiness, values and sense of meaning are instilled in childrenand adolescents, are an important part of supporting the learning and lifelong development of children, adolescents and adults. According to Seligman’s PERMA model (2011), there are five elements of well-being: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationship, Meaning and Accomplishment, which could be measured in different age groups. For young children, theycan’t explore and learn until they feel secure and teachers and caregivers need to establish consistent and responsive relationships with young children in both classrooms and home-based environment. For adolescents and adults, positive education also contributes to their subjective well-being and positive mental health outcomes. Hence, providing nurturing, responsive, and effective interactions and supportive environments is the foundation of the Framework for Positive Education Intervention. Positive education is a form of positive psychology in practical application, using different strategies to teach children strategies and mindsets which could promote positive emotions, positive relationships, resilience, and character strengths. Positive Education has been adopted widely across the world, with thousands of teachers and schools delivering the interventions (Seligman, 2019). This symposium aims to take forward Positive EducationInterventionacross the global by presenting recent practice and new expectations from school curriculum and teachers’ training. The symposium will also provide a platform for reviewing/discussing a number of preliminary intervention programs which concern the future of making education for well-being an integral part of the school curriculum.
Symposium Presentation 1: Improving Happiness via Positive Education: Self-Affirmation Intervention among Adolescents in China
Presenter: Kaiping Peng, Wei Yan, Peng Zhang, Yukun Zhao
Background
In the past three decades, researchers and practitioners have applied self-affirmation theory and related interventions to understand and change behavior in a wide range of domains, especially in the context of education, but the empirical results of interventions related self-affirmation are mixed. On one hand, studies have shown that interventions related self-affirmation have positive and significant impact on students’ academic performance, psychological health, openness to threatening information, stress reduction, prejudice and social conflicts reduction.On the other hand, some studies have suggested that self-affirmation intervention that developed in the context of individualistic cultural context would not work in the Eastern Asian cultures, which embrace interdependence and collectivist values. To date, nolarge-scale studies have rigorously evaluated the effects of self-affirmation intervention in the context of education among Chinese adolescents.
Aims
The present study aimed to examine the efficacy of self-affirmation intervention among Chinese middle and high school students.
Method
3339 students from 115 schools participated in two studies and were randomly assigned to one condition at individual level. Study 1 adopted a standard version of the self-affirmation paradigm including affirmation vs. control condition. Study 2 developed a new paradigm by distinguishing between individualistic value affirmation (vs. control) and collectivist value affirmation (vs. control). All students completed the pre-test (before intervention) and post-test (one week later).
Results
Study 1 showed the effectiveness of self-affirmation intervention in improving students' life satisfaction, subjective mental well-being, purpose in life and self-esteem. Study 2 showed that both individualistic and collectivist self-affirmation interventions are effective in improving students' scores in math and subjective mental well-being.
Conclusion
In sum, the findings showed the benefits of self-affirmation interventions on psychological and academic outcomes, which is discussed in relation to the broader application of self-affirmation intervention in Chinese context.
Symposium Presentation 2: Culture-based Positive Education Program for Chinese Preschoolers
Presenter: Jinghan Chee, Hairong Mao, Ying Wang
Background
Over the past few decades we pay more attention to the teaching strategies in early childhood education. Alongside the trend the rise of positive psychology is changing our philosophy of early education. Support for a new era of child centric teaching practices dedicated to children wellbeing enhancement has come from not only researchers and psychologists, but also schools and communities who are showing an increased concern for integrating positive psychology based programs into the early education curriculum.
Aims
The present study reflects on the development of positive psychology preschool-based curriculum within the modern context in mainland Chinese society and offers insights into whether the curriculum could improve children’s wellbeing, social skills and mental health and how these initiatives can be enhanced to reach a wider demographic of young children.
Method
To achieve the purposes, we design a preschool textbook consisted of three parts: theoretical framework, empirical study review and lesson plans. To make this textbook more age-oriented, we designed the lesson plans for three age groups. In the youngest group (2-3 years old), the lesson plans include various activities based on PERMA model to help teachers integrate the five elements of well-beinginto the curriculum. In the middle and the eldest groups (4-7 years old), the lesson plans provide project-based curriculum that allows children to learn through play and enhance their happiness feeling.
Results
We plan to conduct a longitudinal study on 2-7-year-old children from mainland China to examine the effects of the positive education curriculum. Children’s well-being by using the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale, Attachment-Q-Sort, and Children Behavior Checklist will be assessed. The expected results are the positive education curriculum significantly increases children’s attachment with parents and teachers; and significantly reduce their externalizing and internalizing problems.
Conclusion
Being the first positive psychology education textbook for preschoolers in China, it not only promotes a localized positive education program in teacher training, also supports the positive educational initiatives in early childhood education.
Symposium Presentation 3: Improving Happiness via Positive Psychology Intervention in China and the United States
Presenter: Wei Yan, Youjie Chen ,Yun Wu
Background
Purpose in life and self-affirmation are important buffers against threats and protecting factors to individuals across various contexts. Existing literature has shown that affirming youths’ purpose can facilitate their performance and psychological well-being. However, empirical studies rarely investigated the effectiveness of the purpose-affirmation intervention paradigm among adolescents in non-WERID cultures. Given that researchers have proposed that purpose in life and self-affirmation may overlap on their driving mechanisms in cultivating positive youth development, we propose that FTP may be a key element uniquely explaining the positive effect of purpose-affirmation.
Aims
This study aims to examine the effectiveness self-guided interventions that based on purpose in life and self-affirmation on adolescent development. In addition, this study also aimed to explore the underlying mechanism of purpose’s effect on positive youth development across cultures (i.e., China and the U.S.).
Method
To examine these purposes, we designed two online self-guided intervention programs. Specifically, adolescents will be randomly assigned to purpose-affirmation, self-affirmation, or control condition. To affirm adolescents’ purpose/self, students will be given a list of purposes or values. Students will be asked to choose three purposes/values from the list that are most important to them and write their reasons. Students in the control condition would be asked to recall and write an essay about what study tips they use.
Results
It is expected that after a three-month longitudinal follow-up, adolescents in the purpose- and self-affirmation groups would show significant enhancement in academic performance, purpose and wellbeing in both countries. FTP would be a unique factor explaining the positive effect of one-time, self-guided purpose-affirmation (but not self-affirmation) intervention on youth development.
Conclusion
Affirming adolescents’ purpose and self would both significantly enhance students’ academic performance, purpose in life and well-being across cultures. FTP would only be the explaining factor for purpose-affirmation based interventions.