About this Research Topic
Higher education institutions traditionally concentrated on fostering students' learning and academic success. However, recent times have seen an increasing emphasis on the importance of students' wellbeing and overall flourishing. The COVID pandemic has heightened this urgency due to cognitive declines and increased wellbeing issues.
Research shows that promoting learning and wellbeing are synergistic goals. Students with better wellbeing perform better academically, are more motivated, and experience higher engagement levels. Positive education, rooted in positive psychology, can be a resource and ally for universities to achieve their traditional aims. An emerging paradigm addressing student learning and wellbeing, positive education studies research topics such as wellbeing, resilience, character strengths, positive emotions, motivation, and social relationships. Although most growth in positive education has been in primary and secondary education, there are hopeful signs of its expansion into higher education.
This Research Topic focuses on positive higher education, which encompasses positive psychology and education research in higher education. It aims to explore the emerging field of positive education comprehensively and timely, bringing together higher education scholars and positive education researchers to investigate learning, wellbeing, and flourishing.
Higher education is growing worldwide, with the number of students pursuing tertiary education more than doubling in recent decades. Universities play a crucial role in young people’s lives, providing essential skills and competencies for optimal functioning. They also offer an accessible and stable environment for positive education interventions, making universal interventions more feasible. This Research Topic aims to catalyze universities and other higher education institutions to harness this untapped potential.
We welcome submissions of original research, reviews, methodological articles, and systematic and scoping reviews.
Topics that will be of interest to the special issue include, but are not limited to the following:
- Positive psychology/education interventions in higher education settings
- Investigations on students’ character strengths, virtues, and other positive characteristics
- Positive pedagogy and teaching practices in higher education
- Professional development for cultivating and promoting staff wellbeing
- Relationship between staff wellbeing and student learning
- Positive leadership and organizational practices in higher education
- Positive teaching and learning environment to enhance staff and student wellbeing
- Environmental and social-contextual factors that influence student learning and wellbeing
- Positive psychological states among students and teachers
Research shows that promoting learning and wellbeing are synergistic goals. Students with better wellbeing perform better academically, are more motivated, and experience higher engagement levels. Positive education, rooted in positive psychology, can be a resource and ally for universities to achieve their traditional aims. An emerging paradigm addressing student learning and wellbeing, positive education studies research topics such as wellbeing, resilience, character strengths, positive emotions, motivation, and social relationships. Although most growth in positive education has been in primary and secondary education, there are hopeful signs of its expansion into higher education.
This Research Topic focuses on positive higher education, which encompasses positive psychology and education research in higher education. It aims to explore the emerging field of positive education comprehensively and timely, bringing together higher education scholars and positive education researchers to investigate learning, wellbeing, and flourishing.
Higher education is growing worldwide, with the number of students pursuing tertiary education more than doubling in recent decades. Universities play a crucial role in young people’s lives, providing essential skills and competencies for optimal functioning. They also offer an accessible and stable environment for positive education interventions, making universal interventions more feasible. This Research Topic aims to catalyze universities and other higher education institutions to harness this untapped potential.
We welcome submissions of original research, reviews, methodological articles, and systematic and scoping reviews.
Topics that will be of interest to the special issue include, but are not limited to the following:
- Positive psychology/education interventions in higher education settings
- Investigations on students’ character strengths, virtues, and other positive characteristics
- Positive pedagogy and teaching practices in higher education
- Professional development for cultivating and promoting staff wellbeing
- Relationship between staff wellbeing and student learning
- Positive leadership and organizational practices in higher education
- Positive teaching and learning environment to enhance staff and student wellbeing
- Environmental and social-contextual factors that influence student learning and wellbeing
- Positive psychological states among students and teachers
Keywords: Positive education, Higher education, Wellbeing, Resilience, Character strengths, Happiness, Positive emotions, Positive functioning, Agency, Optimism, Meaning and purpose, Self-efficacy, Motivation, Mindfulness, Gratitude, Compassion Curriculum, Pedagogy
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
