Helping Language Teachers to Thrive: Using Positive Psychology to Promote Teachers’ Professional Well-Being

2016 ◽  
pp. 213-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mercer ◽  
Pia Oberdorfer ◽  
Mehvish Saleem
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Language Teachers

Service--Learning in Positive Psychology: Effects on Well-Being and Learning Outcomes

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeana L. Magyar-Moe ◽  
Katherine Becker ◽  
Lisa Rubow ◽  
Jenna Semling ◽  
Debra Simmerman
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Well Being

A positive psychology study and intervention on the well-being of French PhD students in biology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Marais ◽  
Rebecca Shankland ◽  
Pascale Haag ◽  
Robin Fiault ◽  
Bridget Juniper
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Attrition Rates ◽  
Human Costs ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control ◽  
Health And Well Being

In France, little data are available on mental health and well-being in academia, and nothing has been published about PhD students. From studies abroad, we know that doing a PhD is a difficult experience resulting in high attrition rates with significant financial and human costs. Here we focused on PhD students in biology at university Lyon 1. A first study aimed at measuring the mental health and well-being of PhD students using several generalist and PhD-specific tools. Our results on 136 participants showed that a large fraction of the PhD students experience abnormal levels of stress, depression and anxiety, and their mean well-being score is significantly lower than that of a British reference sample. French PhD student well-being is specifically affected by career uncertainty, perceived lack of progress in the PhD and perceived lack of competence, which points towards possible cultural differences of experiencing a PhD in France and the UK. In a second study, we carried out a positive psychology intervention. Comparing the scores of the test and control groups showed a clear effect of the intervention on reducing anxiety. We discuss our results and the possible future steps to improve French PhD students’ well-being.

An Interview with Sarah Mercer on Language Learner and Teacher Well-Being

Relay Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 459-463
Author(s):  
Sam Morris ◽  
Sarah Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Learner Autonomy ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Language Teacher ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The University

In our June 2019 LAB session on Teacher/Advisor Education for Learner Autonomy, our featured interview was conducted with Sarah Mercer, Professor of Foreign Language Teaching and Head of ELT at the University of Graz, Austria. Sarah has published a wealth of papers in the field of language and teacher psychology, and co-edited many books including, most recently, New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (2016), Positive Psychology in SLA (2016), and Language Teacher Psychology (2018). Sarah was awarded the 2018 Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism in recognition of her work. We were delighted that she was able to share her knowledge on the topic of language learner and teacher well-being with us during the session.

The (Un)translatability of Well-Being

2020 ◽  
pp. 377-394
Author(s):  
Tim Lomas
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Mainstream Psychology

Positive psychology—the scientific study of well-being—has made considerable strides in understanding its subject matter since emerging in the late 1990s. However, like mainstream psychology more broadly, it can be deemed relatively Western-centric, with its concepts and priorities influenced by ways of thinking and understanding that are prominent in Western cultures. Consequently, the field would benefit from greater cross-cultural awareness, engagement, and understanding. One such means of doing so is through the study of “untranslatable” words (i.e., those lacking an exact equivalent in another language, in this case English). This chapter reflects on the nature of untranslatable words, considers their significance to positive psychology (and psychology more broadly), and offers suggestions for why and how the field should engage with them.

Positive Psychology Applications

2009 ◽  
pp. 34-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Alex Linley ◽  
Stephen Joseph ◽  
John Maltby ◽  
Susan Harrington ◽  
Alex M. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Humanistic Psychology ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Organizational Scholarship ◽  
Client Centered Therapy ◽  
Good Lives

Applied positive psychology is concerned with facilitating good lives and enabling people to be at their best. It is as much an approach as a particular domain of inquiry. As shown throughout this chapter, positive psychology has applications that span almost every area of applied psychology and beyond. In clinical psychology, counseling and psychotherapy, applied positive psychology builds on the traditions of humanistic psychology and Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy. It challenges the dominant assumptions of the medical model and promotes a dimensional, rather than dichotomous, understanding of mental health and mental illness. Beyond the alleviation of psychopathology, applied positive psychology has also seen the development of specific happiness-increase interventions, including counting one's blessings, using signature strengths, and paying a gratitude visit. In education, applied positive psychology has been used to promote flow in the classroom, as well as harnessing children's strengths to aid their learning and development. Forensic applications of positive psychology are represented by the good lives model of offender management, which focuses on the adaptive satisfaction of human needs. In Industrial Organizational (I/O) psychology, positive psychology applications are represented throughout work on transformational leadership, employee engagement, positive organizational scholarship, positive organizational behavior, appreciative inquiry, and strengths-based organization. In society, more broadly, applied positive psychology is shown to influence the development of life coaching and the practice of executive coaching, while population approaches are being explored in relation to epidemiology and the promotion of social well-being. Having reviewed these diverse areas, the chapter then goes on to consider the theoretical basis for applied positive psychology; the questions of who should apply positive psychology, as well as where and how; and whether positive psychology applications could be universally relevant. The chapter concludes by considering what the future of applied positive psychology may hold and suggesting that the discipline has the potential to impact positively on people throughout the world.

scholarly journals Development of a Positive Psychology Program (LAVENDER) for Preserving Medical Student Well-being: A Single-Arm Pilot Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 216495612098848
Author(s):  
Elaine O Cheung ◽  
Ian Kwok ◽  
Allison B Ludwig ◽  
William Burton ◽  
Xinzi Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Albert Einstein College ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Psychology Program

Background Mental health tends to worsen over the course of medical school, with steep declines in well-being in students’ clerkship year (M3). Positive emotion promotes adaptive coping to stress and may help preserve medical student well-being. Objective This study describes the development of LAVENDER (Leveraging Affect and Valuing Empathy for Nurturing Doctors’ Emotional Resilience), a program aimed at increasing positive emotion to preserve well-being in medical students. Methods We conducted a single-arm pilot of LAVENDER, a positive psychology intervention developed for medical students delivered in an interactive classroom format to a cohort of 157 third-year medical students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Our primary outcome was the acceptability of LAVENDER. We also examined preliminary efficacy using measures of emotion, stress and burnout collected at each intervention session. Results LAVENDER showed good acceptability: 76% of participants agreed that the LAVENDER skills were useful and 72% agreed that they would recommend the LAVENDER program to others. Qualitative feedback suggested that medical students enjoyed the program and found the skills to be useful for coping with stress, but also reported the following barriers to engagement: lack of time to practice the skills, resistance to the mandatory nature of the wellness sessions, and difficulty integrating the skills in daily life. We did not find support for the preliminary efficacy of LAVENDER for improving medical student well-being in students’ clerkship year. Participants showed decreases in positive emotion and increases in symptoms of burnout over the intervention period ( ps < .01). Conclusion The current paper describes the development and a single-arm pilot test of LAVENDER, a positive psychology program tailored for medical students. Although we found preliminary evidence for the acceptability of LAVENDER, we did not find support for the preliminary efficacy. Lessons learned and next steps for the program are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document