Positive Education in Asia

King, Ronnel B.; Caleon, Imelda S.; Tan, Jennifer Pei Ling; Ye, Shengquan

doi:10.1007/s40299-016-0292-3

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…From our work, we make two recommendations to advance the field; first to conduct studies that assess long-term impact as well as short-term effects and second to understand how to maximise benefit for students, including those in Asia. In his recent editorial on the state of Positive Education in Asia, King et al (2016) identified a lack of attention to the socio-cultural context as another important gap in the research literature. Two-thirds of the world's population lives in Asia, yet most of the academic work is conducted in Western countries.…”

Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Developing Future-Ready University Graduates: Nurturing Wellbeing and Life Skills as Well as Academic Talent

et al. 2022

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Higher education is starting to embrace its role in promoting student wellbeing and life skills, especially given the concerning levels of poor mental health and uncertainties in the future job market. Yet, many of the published studies evaluating positive educational teaching methods thus far are limited to interventions delivered to small student cohorts and/or imbedded within elective wellbeing courses, and are focussed on developed Western countries. This study addressed this gap by investigating the effectiveness of an institution-wide compulsory course informed by the principles of Seligman’s Wellbeing Theory. The course was delivered at a British university in a developing country in Southeast Asia. It purposefully sought to nurture growth-oriented outcomes (including self-awareness, positive emotions, and personal effectiveness) and was taken by an entire cohort of year one undergraduate students. We tested the effectiveness of the curriculum content and staff coaching style in achieving life skills, and evaluated how these perceptions influenced students’ subjective wellbeing. A convergent mixed-methods design was used with 350 survey respondents and 11 interviewees. Perceived life skills scores showed a 2.5% improvement at the end of the course. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling tested the predicted relationships between variables. All relationships were statistically significant, but the influence of course design and educators’ style on life skills acquisition (50.8% of the variance) was moderate, while the effect on subjective happiness and life satisfaction (4–5% of the variance) was very weak. Qualitative data indicated that while quantifiable benefits to wellbeing might not be immediate, students did anticipate longer-term benefits for happiness and life satisfaction. This finding suggests that such a novel educational approach is well-received by Asian students and may sow the seeds for future benefit by positively impacting on their skills, behaviours, attitudes, and values. To achieve optimal flourishing at university, we recommend exploring teaching practises that combine positive education with coaching psychology practises.

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Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of specific challenges in implementing positive education principles within the general university curriculum have been recognised (e.g., King et al, 2016). The university environment itself may provide one such tension.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Future-Ready University Graduates: Nurturing Wellbeing and Life Skills as Well as Academic Talent

et al. 2022

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“…Literature witnesses a growing interest in school effectiveness research that emphasized schools serving as the nexus between the movement in positive psychology (Gilman et al, 2009; King et al, 2016; Martin, 2016; Seligman et al, 2009). Positive psychologists describe the science of positive psychology as scaffolded by three main pillars which are positive emotion, positive character traits, and positive institution (White & Waters, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This concern is in line with initiatives to empower positive school attributes as emphasized in the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013 to 2025 (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2013). However, the extent to which school stakeholders perceive positive school attributes remain unclear both in the limited literature of positive psychology studies, particularly in Asian countries (King et al, 2016; Martin, 2016), especially in how it could promote autonomy support from the school leaders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Positive School Attributes: Evidence From School Leader and Teacher Perspectives

et al. 2021

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The extent to which school stakeholders perceive positive school attributes remains unclear in the literature. This study seeks to provide an understanding of positive school attributes from the school leaders and teachers’ perspectives in the Malaysian school context. This study employed a qualitative case study research design with 14 informants selected from seven Malaysian secondary schools. The thematic analysis informed six emerging themes: (1) stimulating positive emotion, (2) promoting positive engagement, (3) fostering positive relationships, (4) cultivating positive meaning, (5) nurturing positive accomplishment, and (6) cultivating spirituality in expressing positive school attributes. Fostering positive relationships were specified as (1) teacher-teacher relationship, (2) teacher-student relationship, and (3) student-student relationship. Cultivating spirituality is a newly emerged theme that is added to the unique positive school attributes. These newly added components of the existing PERMA model can trigger further research in positive education studies.

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“…Some of this research has been put together in a special journal issue on positive education in the Asian context (King, Caleon, Tan, & Ye, 2016) that featured studies exploring different positive personal and sociocultural factors which could contribute to key learning outcomes among student populations in Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The positive education research included from the Philippines explored the roles of positive affective states (Villavicencio & Bernardo, 2016) and selected dispositional factors like psychological capital Ganotice, Yeung, Beguina, & Villarosa, 2016) and locus-of-hope (Bernardo, Salanga, Khan, & Yeung, 2016) play in catalyzing desirable learning processes and outcomes among Filipino student and non-student populations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%