Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemTeaching with strengths in trauma-affected students: A new approach to healing and growth in the classroom.(American Psychological Association, 2015-02-04)The National Child Traumatic Stress Network in the United States reports that up to 40% of students have experienced, or been witness to, traumatic stressors in their short lifetimes. These include home destabilization, violence, neglect, sexual abuse, substance abuse, death, and other adverse childhood experiences. The effects of trauma on a child severely compound the ability to self-regulate and sustain healthy relationships. In the classroom, the effects of trauma may manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, reactive attachment, disinhibited social engagement, and/or acute stress disorders. In this article, the authors contend that the classroom can be positioned as a powerful place of intervention for posttraumatic healing both in the context of special education and in mainstream classrooms that contain trauma-affected students.
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ItemTrauma-Informed Positive Education: Using Positive Psychology to Strengthen Vulnerable Students(Springer, 2016)This paper explores the role of a positive education paradigm in mainstream and specialist classrooms for students who have experienced complex trauma resulting from abuse, neglect, violence, or being witness to violence. Existing trauma-informed education focuses on repairing regulatory abilities and repairing disrupted attachment in students. However, a dual-continua model of mental health suggests that repairing deficits is only part of the education response needed to nurture well-being in trauma-affected students. Trauma informed education can be conceived from both a deficit perspective (e.g., what deficiencies or developmental struggles does this student face?) and a strengths perspective (e.g., what psychological resources does this student have to build upon for future success?). This paper develops the strengths-based trauma-informed positive education (TIPE) approach which proposes three domains of learning needed for trauma affected students: repairing regulatory abilities, repairing disrupted attachment, and increasing psychological resources. It is argued that the three domains support each other via synergistic interactions which create upward spirals to increase psychological growth. The TIPE model will make a contribution to research in positive education, positive psychology, and traumatology, with the applied context of assisting classroom teachers and school-based practitioners to meet the complex behavioral, cognitive, and relational needs of students struggling in schools.
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ItemTrauma-informed flexible learning: classrooms that strengthen regulatory abilities.(University of Victoria, 2016-05-18)This study explores the implementation of the first of three domains, increasing regulatory abilities, within a trauma-informed positive education (TIPE) approach with flexible learning teachers as they incorporated trauma-informed principles into their daily teaching practice. Trauma-informed teaching approaches have particular relevance for flexible learning settings, and can help meet the complex needs of students who have experienced violence, abuse, or neglect. This paper proposes that redressing a trauma-affected student’s regulatory abilities should be the first aim in this developmentally-informed TIPE pedagogy. Drawing from research with nine teachers working in trauma-affected flexible learning settings in a large metropolitan region, this study employs a qualitative appreciative inquiry action research methodology to explore the use of TIPE perspectives with their students. Under the domain of increasing regulatory abilities, four arising subthemes hold particular application for teacher practice and planning: rhythm; self regulation; mindfulness; and de-escalation. These four subthemes are positioned as promising pathways to increasing regulatory abilities in students as they strive toward successful learning outcomes.
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ItemWhy Do You Work with Struggling Students? Teacher Perceptions of Meaningful Work in Trauma-Impacted Classrooms(Edith Cowan University, 2018-02-01)This study contributed new findings to the construct of meaningful work (MW) and negative impacts on MW. In other professional samples, finding meaning in work has been shown to be an effective buffer when facing workplace adversity. However, prior investigation has neither identified nor explored the specific sources and mechanisms of meaningful work that teachers derive from educating trauma-affected students. Within a cross-sectional sample of primary and secondary teachers (N = 18) working in traumaaffected classrooms, two interrelated sources of MW: (1) practice pedagogy and (2) teacher wellbeing were further analysed for discussion via Rosso, Dekas, and Wrzesniewski's (2010) four mechanisms of MW (i.e., individuation, self-connection, contribution, and unification). These findings argue for the new development of trauma-informed pedagogies that both (1) enable teachers to redress the complex and unmet needs of students and (2) incorporate domains of meaning that teachers bring to their trauma-affected work.
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ItemShifting Teacher Practice in Trauma-Affected Classrooms: Practice Pedagogy Strategies Within a Trauma-Informed Positive Education Model(SPRINGER, 2019-09)This study explored how primary and secondary school teachers changed their practice pedagogy as they underwent training in trauma-informed positive education (Brunzell et al., Contemp School Psychol 20:63–83, 2016b. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-015-0070-x). TIPE integrates teaching strategies from two practice paradigms: trauma-informed education and positive education in order to educate vulnerable students who struggle in school due to trauma histories from abuse, neglect and/or violence. Over the course of 1 year, teachers (N = 18) co-designed and/or adapted TIPE through an iterative procedure of appreciative inquiry participatory action research. The aim was to strengthen teacher capacities in order to assist their students to overcome classroom-based adversity and to bolster their learning. This study privileged teachers’ phenomenological experience of TIPE by investigating the experiential aspects of planning for and implementing curriculum and classroom management. Two emergent themes were found in the qualitative data: (1) increasing relational capacity and (2) increasing psychological resources. These results were analysed through contemporary frames of teacher practice, which revision the purpose of teacher practice as a set of practice challenges to better assist teachers in educating their vulnerable student cohorts.
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ItemCan a Brief Strength-Based Parenting Intervention Boost Self-Efficacy and Positive Emotions in Parents?(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2016-12-01)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableA case study of 'The Good School:' Examples of the use of Peterson's strengths-based approach with students(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2015-01-02)This applied case study centers on two aspects of Peterson's research as introduced into a large K-12 school in Australia: (i) creating enabling institutions and (ii) applications of character strengths. The paper describes five character strengths initiatives. Four of the strengths initiatives have been integrated into existing school experiences such as English curriculum, school sport, student leadership, and counseling. The fifth initiative involved a brand new program which introduced a Positive Education Curriculum for years K-10. We describe these five initiatives and then explain how students at the school may experience these in a more holistic and integrated way. We hope that this article will act as a fitting tribute to the legacy of Christopher Peterson.
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ItemPositive Instruction in Music Studios: Introducing a New Model for Teaching Studio Music in Schools Based upon Positive Psychology(SPRINGER HEIDELBERG, 2015-10-26)This practice paper explores the intersection of school studio-music pedagogy and positive psychology in order to enhance students' learning and engagement. The paper has a practitioner focus and puts forward a new model of studio teaching, the Positive Instruction in Music Studios (PIMS) model that guides teachers through four key positive psychology processes that can be used in a music lesson: positive priming, strengths spotting, positive pause, and process praise. The model provides a new, positively oriented approach to studio-music pedagogy that can be integrated into specific methods-based programs to enhance student learning and engagement.
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ItemThe Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy in the Connections between Strength-Based Parenting, Happiness and Psychological Distress in Teens.(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2017-10-10)Preliminary studies of strength-based parenting (SBP), a style of parenting that seeks to build strengths knowledge and strengths use in one's child, have reported benefits such as higher life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, and positive emotions together with lower stress in children and teens. Two proximal mediators conveying these effects have been identified: teen's own use of strengths and strength-based coping, along with a small moderating effect of growth mindsets relating to strengths. The current study tests the potential mediating effect of self-efficacy, a sense of agency in life, in the relationship between SBP and mental health (wellbeing and illbeing) in teens. Self efficacy has been linked to wellbeing and strengths processes in past studies and is classed as a basic human need and form of eudaimonic happiness. This study reconfirmed the adaptive benefits of SBP in a large sample of Australian adolescents (N = 11,368; 59% male; Mage = 14.04, SDage = 1.99) sourced from 28 schools. Using structural equation modeling, SBP significantly and directly predicted higher happiness and lower depression, with direct effects falling into the 85th and 95th percentile of meta-analytically derived individual differences effect sizes. In addition, self-efficacy was a significant partial mediator, accounting for 40.0% of the total effect on happiness and 52.7% of the total effect on distress. Self-efficacy was also a full mediator in the case of anxiety, with a strong indirect effect. Results suggest that building strengths in teens can also build self-efficacy, and given the large effect sizes, that SBP is a promising leverage point for increasing teen wellbeing.
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ItemObserving Change Over Time in Strength-Based Parenting and Subjective Wellbeing for Pre-teens and Teens(Frontiers Media, 2019-10-10)The focus of this study was on adolescent mental health. More specifically, the relationship between strength-based parenting (SBP) and subjective wellbeing (SWB) during adolescence was examined at three time points over 14 months (N = 202, Mage = 12.97, SDage = 0.91, 48% female). SBP was positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect at each of the three time points, and was negatively related to negative affect. SBP and SWB both declined significantly over time. When examining the causal relationships between SBP and SWB, two different statistical models were applied: latent growth-curve models (LGM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM). The LGM revealed a strong positive relationship between changes in SBP and SWB. Specifically, this model showed that SBP at one time point predicted adolescent SWB at future time points. However, when the more stringent statistical test was completed through RI-CLPMs, no cross-lagged paths reached significance. Thus, while parenting is a significant predictor of wellbeing for pre-teens and teens in real time, it is not predictive of wellbeing at future time points. Parents, thus, cannot assume that their current levels of SBP are ‘banked’ by their children to support future wellbeing. Instead, SBP needs to be an ongoing, contemporary parenting practice. Furthermore, the fact that perceptions of SBP decline in this age bracket suggest that SBP interventions may be helpful in supporting adolescent mental health.