Well-being in post-primary schools in Ireland: the assessment and contribution of character strengths

Abstract

Enhancing the well-being of primary and post-primary students is one of the priorities of the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland. Whilst interventions are being implemented across the board, little is known about the current levels of adolescents’ well-being. Drawing from research on positive education, in the current study well-being was assessed amongst 2822 adolescents, aged 12–19 in Ireland, using the PERMA profiler [Butler, J., and M. L. Kern. (2016). “The PERMA-Profiler: A Brief Multidimensional Measure of Flourishing.” International Journal of Wellbeing 6 (3): 1–48. doi:10.5502/ijw.v6i3.526] and “VIA-Youth Survey” [VIA Character (2014). http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Research-Old2/Psychometric-Data-VIA-Youth-Survey]. Mann–Whitney U-test and multiple regression analyses were conducted in the examination of age and sex differences in students’ well-being scores, and the prediction of the contribution of character-strength-development to well-being. The results showed that students’ well-being decreased steadily from the first year, through to the middle and senior years of post-primary school. Furthermore, in comparison to males, females reported lower levels of well-being across the board, and higher levels of negative emotions and loneliness. Finally, the underuse of character strengths predicted lower levels of well-being in Irish schools. Implications for practice include the importance of customising well-being programmes across different schools and age groups, as well as the potential for the incorporation of psychological tests to evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions.

Keywords:

• positive psychology
• well-being
• positive education
• PERMA profiler
• VIA character strengths

Notes on contributors

Dr Jolanta Burke is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Programme Leader of the Masters In Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology at the University of East London. Dr Burke is passionate about applying positive psychology in various fields. She has worked with businesses, such as Google, Pfizer, Cornmarket, The Big Lottery Fund, and many others, helping them use positive psychology research to help their teams and individuals in organisations thrive. As well as applying positive psychology in business, she also carried out research on applications of positive psychology in education.

Dr Stephen James Minton is the Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, where he is a full-time lecturer in the Psychology of Education. His areas of research interest include (i) processes of inclusion, exclusion and marginalisation in education and society, especially regarding Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ people, and members of alternative youth sub-cultures, and addressing prejudice in and through educational practice; (ii) aggression, including school bullying and violence, and cyber-bullying; and, (iii) most generally of all, psychosocial approaches in education.