Roundtable Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Growing Gratitude in Primary and Secondary Schools in Singapore (#309)

Baoping Yap 1 , Hwee Chien Ng 1 , Kimberley Croy 1
  1. Ministry of Education , Singapore

The Ministry of Education embarked on a pilot with six schools in Singapore to study the implementation of gratitude practices and its effects on school community. Learning from experts and research guided the implementation of Gratitude practices. An evaluation was conducted to study the early effects on students, teachers, and the factors that contributed to effective implementation. Key insights and findings were based on the analysis and aggregation of the quantitative and qualitative data collected from multiple data points. Quantitative data included students’ pre- and post-implementation surveys and retrospective surveys for school personnel. Qualitative data was collected from structured interviews, Focus Group Discussions, students’ work and analysis of schools’ action plans and activity plans. Findings were strengthened by triangulating data from multiple data points.  Following a year of implementation, students were found to have deepened their understanding of Gratitude. Students reported an increase in their proneness to experience gratitude in daily life, and their ability to reflect and express gratitude. Some schools reported improvements in teacher-student and student-student relationships. A Gratitude e-publication was produced to share good practices and facilitate the seeding of Gratitude in Singapore schools. The findings also helped to inform the character and citizenship education curriculum review.