Browsing by Subject "psychological flexibility"
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(2023)This master’s thesis includes two sections: the present summarizing report and the article manuscript. The purpose of the study is to explore the benefits of an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-based intervention course to university students’ well-being, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The COVID-19 pandemic has decreased university students’ well-being and increased their risk of burnout. The declined state of student well-being calls for measures in exploring ways of promoting student well-being and preventing study-related burnout. The intervention course aimed to increase students’ psychological flexibility and organized studying skills, as means to positively impact their well-being and studying. A total of 189 participated in the study in the spring of 2021. Students’ risk of burnout was measured pre- and post-intervention, to statistically define whether students experienced that the course impacted their risk of burnout. To explore the course benefits in depth, students’ written reflective reports post-intervention were analyzed using abductive content analysis. The results were statistically compared according to the risk of burnout group assigned pre-intervention. The results showed that the intervention course led to a positive change in students' risk of burnout. The content analysis revealed seven main categories of benefits of the course: 1. improved general well-being, 2. improved self-knowledge, 3. increased psychological flexibility, 4. improved study practices and study motivation, 5. increased self-compassion, 6. gained peer-support, and 7. improved organized studying. These benefits were experienced by students regardless of their initial risk of burnout. The study highlights the potential of ACT-based intervention courses in improving the well-being and studying skills of university students, suggesting a need for further research on burnout prevention through such measures. The prospective publication channel for the research article manuscript is Research in Higher Education by Springer.
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(2015)In Finland, the vast majority of students complete their university degree later than the target times propose. This has been acknowledged to be problematic on a societal level. In previous studies, students' self-regulatory skills have risen as a main factor when the impeding and enhancing factors of studying have been explored. In addition to self-regulatory skills, students' academic emotions have been found to influence study performance. According to earlier studies, it is also relevant how students deal with their emotions. Psychologically flexible students are able to embrace their emotions and they are capable of living their lives according to their values. The aim of this study is to explore the self-regulatory skills, academic emotions and psychological flexibility of students in the Faculty of Humanities in University of Helsinki and the relationships between these concepts. In addition, a point of interest is how these factors are linked to study performance. The research data was collected by a survey. In addition the information of students' average scores and the amount of student credits were collected from the study register. 258 students responded to the questionnaire. Dimensions of self-regulation, academic emotions and psychological flexibility were explored by factor analysis and the links between these dimensions were examined by correlation analysis. In addition students were grouped based on their self-regulatory skills, psychological flexibility and experienced emotions by using two-step cluster analysis. The differences of the groups' study pace and means of grades were examined using one-way analysis of variance. Students felt that they are psychologically quite flexible, and they experienced more positive emotions than negative emotions. They also had rather good self-regulation skills. Psychological flexibility was associated with a feeling of hopefulness, and emotions were found to correlate with each other. However, there was no correlation between psychological flexibility and the regulation of learning. On the basis of cluster analysis, the students were classified into three groups: 1) hopeful, self-regulating and psychologically flexible students 2) students who have a contradictory attitude towards studying and have challenges in the regulation learning, and 3) students who experience feelings of anxiety and shame. There was no difference between the groups in the number of credits and the averages of grades. In the future, more information is needed about why some students experience a lot of negative emotions related to learning, and how important psychological flexibility is to the well-being of students and to study performance.
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