Teaching happiness at school: Non-randomised controlled mixed-methods feasibility study on the effectiveness of Personal Well-Being Lessons

Abstract

The paper presents an educational initiative to develop a separate well-being curriculum for a federation of schools in south-east London. A mixed-methods study was undertaken to evaluate the feasibility of the curriculum run biweekly in Year 7 (age 11–12, N = 96). The study utilised a non-randomised repeated measures design with a control group (N = 68) using general life satisfaction, domain life satisfaction and affect balance as outcome variables. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students, two teachers and the principal of the intervention school. The results indicated significant buffering effect of the intervention in protecting students against the decline of satisfaction with self, satisfaction with friends, positive affect and the increase in negative affect throughout the first year of middle school. The qualitative data shed light on explicit learning, psychological outcomes and challenges associated with the programme. Overall, the data indicate a positive impact of the well-being curriculum.

Keywords:

• positive education interventions
• adolescent well-being
• student life satisfaction
• middle school

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Paniko Koureas from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation for the coordination of data collection. The financial support from the Government of the Russian Federation within the framework of the implementation of the 5-100 Programme Roadmap of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.