Handbook of Positive Psychology in Schools

Michael J. Furlong, Rich Gilman, E. Scott Huebner, Michael J. Furlong, Richard Gilman, E. Scott Huebner

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136258381
• Edición: 2
• Categoría: Education
• Categoría: Education Counseling

Understanding the factors that encourage young people to become active agents in their own learning is critical. Positive psychology is one lens that can be used to investigate the factors that facilitate a student's sense of agency and active school engagement. In the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook, the editors draw together the latest work on the field, identifying major issues and providing a wealth of descriptive knowledge from renowned contributors. Major topics include: the ways that positive emotions, traits, and institutions promote school achievement and healthy social and emotional development; how specific positive-psychological constructs relate to students and schools and support the delivery of school-based services; and the application of positive psychology to educational policy making. With thirteen new chapters, this edition provides a long-needed centerpiece around which the field can continue to grow, incorporating a new focus on international applications of the field.

Section III
Contextual Educational Factors and Resources

14
Flow in Schools Revisited

Cultivating Engaged Learners and Optimal Learning Environments

David J. Shernoff, Beheshteh Abdi, and Brett Anderson, Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology, and Foundations at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA

Introduction

Public schools are continually characterized by pervasive boredom (Goodlad, 1984; Steinberg, Brown, & Dornbusch, 1996). For example, the 2009 High School Survey of Student Engagement found that two thirds (66%) of students reported being bored at least every day in high school, and approximately one in six students (17%) was bored in every class (Yazzie-Mintz, 2010). Of concern to teachers for decades (Pickens, 2007; Singh, Granville, & Dika, 2002; Theobald, 2006), boredom and apathy in class are primary reasons that many students do not become engaged in school (Pekrun, Goetz, Daniels, Stupnisky, & Perry, 2010). Studies have reported that disengagement is strongly related to poor attendance and dropout, substance abuse, and criminal offending (Conner & Pope, 2014; Henry, Knight & Thornberry, 2011). Pervasive student disengagement is both a national and an international problem, with 20 to 25% of students in 28 OECD countries (i.e., those belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation) classified as having low participation and/or a low sense of belonging (Willms, 2003).

Schools have historically struggled to provide meaningful and engaging experiences for many youth. Many students in public schools see themselves as passive participants in a mass, anonymous educational system (Larson & Richards, 1991). Accordingly, fostering engagement and enjoyment in learning has become a dominant concern for educators, researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders of the U.S. public school system. Yet many students remain apathetic toward school.

Can positive psychology foster healthier schools with its focus on optimal health and human functioning rather than illness? The concept of optimal experience, or flow, has served as a theoretical cornerstone of positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). In this chapter, we focus on how optimal learning experiences as theoretically rooted in the concept of flow have direct and meaningful application to student engagement in schools. Our review, guided by multiple studies bearing on this topic in the last 20 years, specifically focuses on the perceptual and environmental factors that can influence student engagement and their resultant outcomes. We also highlight several promising contexts for fostering optimal experiences and engaged learning before closing with some new directions in this line of research.

Flow in Learning

By interviewing individuals from diverse backgrounds about their peak experiences, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and colleagues identified the phenomenological characteristics of the most meaningful and satisfying moments in people’s lives. From rock climbers and chess players to accomplished scientists and artists, optimal experiences in diverse activities were often described in similar terms: intense concentration and absorption in an activity with no psychic energy left over for distractions, a merging of awareness with action, a feeling of control, loss of self-consciousness, and a contraction of the normal sense of time (i.e., time seems to fly). Csikszentmihalyi subsequently coined the term “flow” to describe experiences when skillful and successful action seems effortless, even when a great deal of physical or mental energy is exerted. Subsequent research on flow finds that the experience is enhanced by certain properties of the task. Specifically, in most flow activities, goals are clear, and feedback with respect to meeting those goals is immediate and forthcoming. The activities also are often autotelic, or a goal in and of itself performed for the sheer experience of it—sometimes even in the face of personal risk or danger. Perhaps the most central condition for flow experiences to occur is that the challenge of the activity is well matched to the individual’s skills. Typically, the challenge and skill are high and in balance—individuals stretch their skills to their limits in pursuit of a challenging goal. The various combinations of high or low challenges and skills predict distinct psychological states: (a) apathy, resulting from low challenge and low skill; (b) relaxation, resulting from high skill but low challenge; (c) anxiety, resulting from high challenge but low skill; and (d) flow, resulting from high challenge combined with high skill. This model later evolved into one with eight flow channels including four intermediary or transitional states between these four quadrants (see Strati, Shernoff, & Kacker, 2012); however, we discuss only the four quadrants here for simplicity.

As concrete examples of these states, an intermediate-level female skier may find herself in apathy waiting in line at the ski lift before any challenge is present. Once on the mountain, if the first slope is a bunny trail, she finds she has more skills than required and feels only relaxation as she takes in the scenery. Later in the day, when confronted with a slope that is too steep, bumpy, or icy for her ability, anxiety sets in until she safely navigates her way down. Only on her favorite slopes that are quite challenging for her ability, but not excessively so, does she feel herself enter into an enjoyable, rhythmic peak experience in which time seems to stand still. The exhilaration of these flow experiences is typically the main reason skiers invest the time, money, and energy to hit the slopes in the first place (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

Flow experiences can involve mental tasks as much as physical ones. Anyone who has been “sucked into” a good novel that could not be set down implicitly understands the phenomenon. Recent experiments in neuroscience have demonstrated that when a reader is fully engrossed in a novel, the human brain is activated not only in areas responsible for attention; it also dramatically “lights up” in areas controlling affect and emotion (Thomson & Vedansom, 2012). Still, an experienced reader is unlikely to enter flow reading a children’s book. A more sophisticated novel not only appeals to one’s reading ability but also stimulates a full array of skills: to understand the geographical and historical context, infer the motivations of the characters, or solve the central mystery. The relation between flow and the balance of challenge and skills has been empirically supported in numerous settings (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).

The theory of flow, then, is inherently related to learning. When learning a new skill, the challenge of even a basic task may exceed a student’s beginning level of ability, and hence one may feel overwhelmed. Even “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” may be too difficult for a beginner pianist. To reach flow, the level of skill must increase to match the challenge. Much like Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development, the level at which most learning occurs is just one step beyond the skills one has already mastered. In this case, sufficient practice may be needed until the song is mastered. Once the song is played comfortably with relative ease (causing a state of “relaxation”), only one thing can restart a cycle of fresh learning: a new song at a higher level of challenge, causing one’s skill to increase yet again. Thus, the pianist may progress through increasingly difficult songs at ever-higher levels of skill. Flow is expected to peak at the highest level of challenge and skill, as when a master pianist is playing a Mozart concerto with great poise and skill. Fullagar, Knight, and Sovern (2013) found that the balance between the challenge of a passage of music and the skills utilized to play the passage is significantly and consistently correlated with optimal experience. This balance of challenge and skills increases motivation, enhances competence, fosters growth, and extends the student’s capacities (Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh, & Nakamura, 2005; Fullagar et al., 2013).

Also applicable to learning is the finding that flow activities tend to be selected and replicated over time because they are so gratifying. This process of psychological selection plays a crucial role in the development of specific interests, goals, and talents over the course of one’s life (Delle Fave & Massimini, 2003).

Measuring Flow and Engagement in Learning

In the last 25 years, the study of flow has been pursued mainly through the use of the Experience Sampling Method (or ESM; Hektner, Schmidt, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). Respondents carry a paging device (traditionally a programmable wristwatch, but more recently smartphones and pagers), which signals them at random moments throughout the day. Each time a respondent is signaled, he or she completes a brief questionnaire containing open-ended and scaled questions about the day and time of the signal, the current activity, and the cognitive, affective, and motivational qualities of her or his experience pertaining to the activity. Example items include: “As you were beeped, did you enjoy what you were doing?” “How well were you concentrating?” “Was this activity interesting?” In addition, ratings are given for the challenge of the activity and the respondent’s skill in the activity. The ESM thus solicits repeated “snapshots” of subjective experience, improving upon the problem of recall and estimation errors inherent to onetime surveys and interviews. For reliability and validity information regarding the ESM, the reader is referred to Hektner and colleagues (2007).

Based on flow theory, student engagement has been conceptualized as the simultaneous occurrence of high concentration, interest, and enjoyment (Shernoff, 2010b). Concentration or absorption, which is central to flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), is related to meaningful learning (Montessori, 1967), including depth of cognitive processing and academic performance (Corno & Mandinach, 1983). Interest directs attention, reflects intrinsic motivation, stimulates the desire to continue engagement in an activity, and is related to school achievement (Hidi, 1990; Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler, 1992). Enjoyment is a positive feeling related to the demonstration of competencies, creative accomplishment, and school performance (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Nakamura, 1988). In this conceptualization, student engagement is highest when all three components are simultaneously stimulated. As flow theory would predict, student engagement was maximized in classroom experiences in which perceived challenge and skill were above average compared to those marked by apathy (i.e., low challenge, low skill), anxiety (i.e., high challenge, low skill), or relaxation (i.e., low challenge, high skill; Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider, & Shernoff, 2003).

What Flow Theory and the ESM Have Taught Us about Student Engagement in Public Schools

Initial ESM research in U.S. public schools has highlighted the rarity with which students experience flow while in school (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). On average, high school students are less engaged while in classrooms than anywhere else. Their concentration is higher than in activities outside of classrooms, but their level of interest in classroom activities is lower, and their enjoyment is especially low. Students are also found to be thinking about topics entirely unrelated to academics a full 40% of the time while in classrooms (Shernoff, 2010b). Overall, studies suggest that alternative approaches are needed in order to provide what is most lacking: greater enjoyment, motivation, and opportunities for action in the learning process (Bassi & Delle Fave, 2004; Shernoff et al., 2003).

Perceptual and Contextual Factors Influencing Student Engagement

Perceptual Factors Influencing Engagement

Concentration, attention, and engagement, all hallmarks of flow, have been shown to be significantly higher when instruction is perceived as challenging and relevant. Several studies have shown that students experience greater enjoyment, motivation, self-esteem, and engagement when they perceive themselves to be active, in control, and skilled in the activity or subject at hand (Shernoff, 2010b; Shernoff et al., 2003). Consistent with flow theory, these findings suggest that students are more likely to become engaged when academic work intellectually involves them in active processes of meaningful inquiry (Newmann, Wehlage, & Lamborn, 1992). Furthermore, such findings suggest that the perception of competence and autonomy contributes to students’ engagement, likely by increasing self-efficacy and perceptions of self-worth as suggested in much of the motivational literature (e.g., Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008).

Flow and Learning Goals

Learning goal orientation refers to students’ purposes for engaging in their learning activities. Mastery goal orientation is defined as a focus on mastering a task according to self-set standards or for improvement. Alternatively, a performance goal orientation represents a focus on demonstrating ability or competence according to how one will be judged by others (Ames, 1992; Elliott & Dweck, 1988). Students’ goal orientation is recognized to be crucial to academic engagement (Martin, Marsh, Debus, & Malmberg, 2008).

Sharifah, Habibah, Samsilah, and Sidek (2011) investigated the potential of learning goals to influence flow among high school students in Malaysia. Results of the study demonstrated that mastery goals made a significant contribution to explaining flow, whereas performance goals were not a significant predictor of flow. While recognizing that performance goals can have a beneficial role in learning, the researchers emphasized promoting mastery goals as the main ingredient for students to become highly engaged in their learning tasks.

The Influence of Classroom Context and the Learning Environmen...