Highlights
- •An 8-week school-based meditation course can benefit middle school students.
- •The meditation course benefits included increases in self-reflection and academic attention.
- •Life satisfaction was also increased, although overall subjective well-being did not increase.
- •Self-reflection and subjective well-being were strongly related to academic attention.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of school-based meditation courses
on middle school students' self-reflection, academic attention (ability to focus in
classrooms), and subjective well-being.
Design and methods
The research design was a nonequivalent group comparison (n = 163) with pretest and
post-test. The experimental group (n = 81) was given an eight-week meditation course
and the control group (n = 82) was given other elective courses such as calligraphy
and reading.
Results
The experimental group showed significant increases in self-reflection (t = 2.536, p = .012) and academic attention (t = 2.767, p = .006), but subjective well-being did not increase significantly (t = 0.906, p = .367). Life satisfaction was the only subcomponent of subjective well-being that
increased significantly (t = 2.438, p = .016); the other subjective well-being subcomponents did not show any significant
changes.
Conclusions
Self-reflection and academic attention significantly increased in middle school students
after an eight-week meditation course. Even though changes in subjective well-being
were not significant, one of its subcomponents (life satisfaction) did show significant
improvement. Self-reflection and subjective well-being were shown to be influential
factors for academic attention (48.5% of the variance explained).
Practice implications
This study is meaningful in that it examined positive benefits of a meditation course
in middle school students and explored the feasibility of such a course in a school
system.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 25, 2020
Accepted:
May 8,
2020
Received in revised form:
May 5,
2020
Received:
October 23,
2019
Identification
Copyright
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