Character strength interventions and strength documentation in Finnish inclusive classrooms to promote student well-being
In Finland, explicit teaching of well-being skills has recently been acknowledged in the national core curriculum. In our presentation, we will describe one of the first structured positive education interventions in 11 Finnish inclusive classrooms (4th to 9th grades, age 10-16 years). Our controlled 16-week interventions focused on explicit teaching of character strength usage in order to promote social skills, well-being and learning. Seven quantitative self-report measures, Social competence, Strength usage, Grit, Global happiness, School-related happiness, Schoolwork Engagement and Mindset comprised the students’ pre-test – post-test battery. Teacher interviews complemented the data. The intervention group made progress over other students in grit and schoolwork engagement. The teacher accounts revealed six dominant discourses, praise, well-being, good interaction, the significance of encounters, the need for additional education and the discourse of doubt and challenges. In pursuance of character strength documentation, an innovative assessment tool, Positive CV, was developed. Positive CV serves as a platform to instruct and evaluate well-being skills, character strengths, in particular. The principles of a new way to instruct and evaluate generic, transversal skills will be reported in our presentation.