Making school meaningful: linking psychology of education to meaning in life

Abstract

There is little research about making instruction at school meaningful. This is surprising given that ample research suggests that many students do not find school a meaningful place, as documented by decline in interest during middle school, the frequency of boredom at school, and decline in search for meaning among high school students. This article starts with an outline that considers both objective and subjective meaning in life. A review on different aspects of meaning in school, such as teaching meaning, purpose, identity, coherence, caring, aesthetics, and agency, suggest that many ways to improve meaning in school have been underused and understudied. The inclusion of the philosophy of meaning in life extends the scope of research on interest by adding new components of objective meaning that may enrich school activities. This article will review both what has been done and what needs to be done. The article concludes that taking the perspective of meaning in life into account would open new avenues for empirical research in educational psychology. MAKING SCHOOL MEANINGFUL 3"I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind, no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency, of their originality and stubbornness and health, than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them." (Popper, 2007(Popper, /1945.Popper's quote is just one example that expresses a commonplace view that much of school education is meaningless. Unfortunately, meaningfulness is rarely measured in educational psychology. Nevertheless, several lines of research suggest that many students do not find meaning in school.First, interest in school subjects tends to decrease with age (Hidi and Harackiewicz, 2000), particularly in the domain of mathematics during the middle school years (e.g. Fredricks and Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, and Watt, 2010).Disinterest continues in college. For example, Perkins, Gratny, Adams, Finkelstein, and Wieman (2006) found that interest in physics declined during a semester-long introductory calculus-based mechanics course. High dropout rates from school and college follow the decline in interest. Average graduation rates in the US are not much above 50% (see Carnes, 2014). Such dropout rates, together with a decline in interest are a major challenge for Western societies (see Hidi and Harackiewicz, 2000).Another observation is widespread boredom at school (e.g., Pekrun, Goetz, Daniels, Stupinsky, and Perry, 2010). Boredom can be seen as an indicator of meaninglessness because people who experience boredom report that they think a situation does not serve any important purpose and want to do something more meaningful (van Tilburg and Igou, 2012).In addition to decline in interest and experience of boredom, a study by Twenge, Campbell, and Freeman (2012) revealed that meaning in life became a less prioritized goal among high school seniors during the last decades. While "developing a meaningful MAKING SCHOOL MEANINGFUL 4 philosophy of life" and "find...

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