Systematic Implementation of Positive Education in Local Kindergartens: Research and Practice

Overview

A three-year longitudinal project of Positive Education based on theoretical framework of Learn, Live, Teach, Embed (Norrish et al., 2013), was implemented in three participating schools and three demographically-matched control schools in Po Leung Kuk. Training was conducted by Educational Psychologists upon positive education topics, e.g., growth mindset and character strength, for teachers, non-teaching staff and parents. Both explicit curriculum (e.g., story-book telling) and implicit curriculum were carried out in whole school approach. The longitudinal changes of the well-being indicators for parents, teachers and students were measured and analysed. Children’s prosocial behaviour, academic competence, effort and task motivation as observed by both parents and teachers improved significantly among the project schools compared to those among the control schools. A significantly decrease in problem behaviour as rated by the teachers was also found in project school children compared to those at the control schools. Additionally, both parents and teachers in the project schools showed significantly less fixed mindset as compared to those of the control schools at the project end. Interestingly, both parents and teachers at the project schools showed sustained self-efficacy compared to those in the control schools at the end of year two, while parents’ self-efficacy stayed significant at the project end.