A Condensed Positive Psychology Course Improves Students’ Subjective Well-Being and Academic Achievement

Abstract

Background

Completing positive psychology-related activities can increase subjective and objective well-being.

Objective

The present study investigated whether completing a condensed positive psychology course increases students’ subjective well-being and academic achievement relative to those who completed other condensed psychology courses.

Method

One hundred and eighty-one students completed a condensed 4-week to 5-week asynchronous, fully online, positive psychology, cognitive psychology, or statistics course. All students completed three questionnaires assessing their subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, and stress level) at two time points: precompletion and postcompletion of the course. Participants were also asked to indicate how often they shared the information they learned in the course with their close others, and their course grade was analyzed.

Results

Students who completed the positive psychology course reported higher levels of life satisfaction, lower levels of stress, and had a higher course grade compared to students completing the other psychology courses. Students who completed positive psychology indicated that they were more likely to share what they had been learning with their close others than those who completed the other courses. Among the positive psychology activities, participants indicated that they were most likely to continue performing random acts of kindness.

Conclusion

Completing a positive psychology course benefits both the individual and the community at large.

Teaching implications

The results support the use of a positive psychology course to improve students’ well-being and academic achievement.

Keywords

positive psychology subjective well-being academic achievement stress life satisfaction

Positive psychology is broadly defined as the study of happiness and human virtues. Despite its short history, it has quickly become one of the most popular subareas of psychology. At some colleges and universities, positive psychology is the institution's most popular course ever (Oswaks, 2021; Shimer, 2018; Smith, 2006). The burgeoning interest in this field is not surprising, as McCann et al. (2016) have noted that among the 15 common topics covered in most introductory courses, students rated stress/health psychology, which is closely related to positive psychology, as the second most important topic.

Within the last decade, researchers have investigated whether taking a positive psychology course provides health benefits for participants such as increasing their subjective and objective well-being (Diener et al., 2017). Indeed, Chodkiewicz and Boyle (2017) have expressed that there is a need to focus on and enhance students’ well-being by using techniques grounded in positive psychology. Furthermore, the authors noted that the virtues extolled in the discipline such as developing positive self-perceptions and adaptive thinking styles, setting constructive and attainable goals, and learning how to manage one's emotions, are tools that are also conducive to academic success. Likewise, Seligman et al. (2009) stated that the goal of a positive education is to help students develop fundamental skills (e.g., critical thinking) and aptitude (e.g., mathematics knowledge) while maintaining their happiness levels. Improvement of students’ subjective well-being is an important step toward leading a flourishing life and improving their academic success.

Two recent, comprehensive meta-analyses provided evidence that positive psychology interventions can improve well-being (van Agteren et al., 2021; White et al., 2019). Although there are many positive psychology-based interventions to accomplish this, among those most prevalently used include participants describing themselves in their best possible future, focusing on using their strengths, and reflecting on experiences, events, or people for which they are grateful. van Agteren et al. (2021) noted that these interventions are not only beneficial for the general population, but also those who are suffering from a mental or physical illness (Weiss et al., 2016). However, it should be acknowledged that the effect sizes of most positive psychology interventions are small to medium (van Agteren et al., 2021; White et al., 2019).

Positive Psychology in the Classroom

One of the major life stressors experienced by students is a consequence of their academic pursuits (Barker et al., 2018; Fernández-Rodríguez et al., 2019). Oades et al. (2011) noted that universities’ emphasis on students’ attainment of academic excellence can lead to student burnout and dropout. This notion echoes that of Fernández-Rodríguez et al. (2019) who reported that increased academic requirements are commensurate with increased levels of stress, which can lead to depression. Owing to the effects of COVID-19, students of all ages, gender, race, and socioeconomic status have reported a decline in their mental health (Chaturvedi et al., 2021; Duckworth et al., 2021; Kaya & Erdem, 2021; Lee, 2020; Son et al., 2020). In a field study with more than 6,000 high school students, Duckworth et al. (2021) found that students who attended school remotely at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic reported lower levels of both social and emotional well-being and performed worse academically compared to their peers who attended school in person. Thus, positive psychology interventions have the potential to serve as a low-cost intervention to bolster students’ well-being, which is inextricably linked to academic achievement (Kaya & Erdem, 2021; Schneider & Preckel, 2017)

Several previous studies that have examined the efficacy of taking a positive psychology course to improve students’ well-being measured participants’ levels of happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and/or stress before and after taking the course (Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Maybury, 2013; Smith et al., 2021). Students’ well-being in these courses were compared to those taking other psychology courses. The positive psychology course typically included assignments such as keeping a gratitude journal, doing good deeds, and practicing mindfulness. Goodmon et al.'s (2016) results showed that students who completed a 16-week positive psychology course reported increased levels of happiness and life satisfaction, as well as decreased levels of depression and stress. In contrast, those who took social psychology, the comparison course, showed no changes on these variables. Their findings are congruent with those reported by Lambert et al. (2019), who likewise reported that the increase in well-being from taking a positive psychology course was maintained at least 3 months after completion of the course.

Yaden et al. (2021) extended the findings of the previous studies (e.g., Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019) by examining whether the benefits of completing a positive psychology course are observed when the course is offered in an online, asynchronous format. Their 10-week, massive open online course was self-paced and included video lectures. As with the previous studies, participants who completed the positive psychology course reported higher levels of subjective well-being compared to those who completed a different course (in their case, an introductory psychology course), delivered via the same modality. Accordingly, their study introduces the possibility that the benefits of completing a positive psychology course can be made more accessible to students.

Current Study

The present study builds on the previous studies (e.g., Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Smith et al., 2021) assessing whether taking a positive psychology course improves students’ subjective well-being. Like Yaden et al. (2021), the focus of the present study is whether the benefits of taking a positive psychology course is observed when it is delivered asynchronously online. In all the other studies (Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Maybury, 2013; Smith et al., 2021), the course was administered face-to-face and/or over the duration of at least 14 weeks, thereby requiring extensive resources and a large time commitment from both the instructor and students. The one exception is Yaden et al. whose course was 10-week long and administered asynchronously online. The present study examined the effectiveness of a positive psychology course delivered in an even shorter timeframe (4–5 weeks). This difference is important because if a condensed positive psychology course administered asynchronously online improves students’ well-being, the present study introduces a promising intervention that educators and institutions can implement that can have a powerful, positive impact on students’ well-being and academic success at a large-scale, using cost-effective means for the institution, instructor, and the students.

Previous research (Seligman et al., 2005; Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009) assessing the benefits of positive psychology interventions on well-being provides some evidence that students in the current study could likewise improve their well-being by completing a condensed positive psychology course. Sin and Lyubomirksy's meta-analysis showed that positive psychology interventions, which included activities that required participants to write about things they are grateful for, use their personal strength in a new way, and perform acts of kindness, improved participants’ well-being even if the intervention duration was 4 weeks or shorter. In fact, the mean effect size for interventions that were up until 4 weeks was nearly identical to that of the 8 to 12 weeks intervention, r = 0.23 and r = 0.24, respectively. Seligman et al. (2005) had participants complete one of various positive psychology activities. As an example, in one group, participants wrote about three good things that happened in their day every night for 1 week. This group was compared to a control group that wrote about their early memories. On measures of happiness and depressive symptoms, there were no differences between the two groups at the onset of the study. However, happiness increased, and depressive symptoms decreased after completing the 1-week intervention.

The present study also seeks to extend the findings of Yaden et al. (2021) by assessing participants’ academic achievement (i.e., course grade) and their likelihood of continuing the positive psychology activities assigned during the course, which could help maintain participants’ well-being after completion of the course. As noted earlier, previous research has reported that subjective well-being is a positive correlate of academic achievement (see Schneider & Preckel, 2017, for a meta-analysis).

The present study also addresses several limitations of the Yaden et al. (2021) study that may affect the validity and generality of their findings. First, because their study was offered as a free, massive open online course, it is likely that students who enrolled in and completed their positive psychology course were highly motivated to learn about techniques to improve their well-being compared to students in their control course. This motivation concern is supported by the large differential attrition rate between their comparison course (introductory psychology) and the positive psychology course. The comparison course's attrition rate (69%) was 27% higher than that of the positive psychology course (42%), which was also high. This difference complicates the interpretation of the results between the two courses due to selection bias and attrition concerns. Furthermore, the two courses were taught by different instructors thereby necessarily introducing the possibility of instructor teaching style and expectations as potential confounds. The present study addresses these two concerns by using the same instructor for both the positive psychology and comparison psychology courses (cognitive psychology and statistical methods) and uses students from a University who are taking the course for academic credit and a grade; therefore, the extrinsic motivation to do well in the courses should be comparable. Furthermore, unlike all previous studies (i.e., Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Maybury, 2013; Yaden et al., 2021), the current study collects data on students’ prior academic achievement, which further increases methodological control in the present study, because it could affect their performance in the current course. Given the potential benefits of completing a positive psychology course on one's well-being, it is important to validate and assess the reliability and generality of the benefits of taking positive psychology.

To further extend the results of the previous studies (Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Maybury, 2013; Smith et al., 2021; Yaden et al., 2021), the present study seeks to assess the indirect benefits of taking a positive psychology course. Specifically, we examined whether students who are taking positive psychology were more likely to share the course content with their close others (i.e., a spillover effect), relative to those taking other psychology courses. We also assessed whether participants would continue to engage in the various positive psychology activities postcompletion of the course. This knowledge is important for two reasons. Theoretically, it provides indirect evidence of which activities that are used in a typical positive psychology course might provide the biggest benefit in bolstering subjective well-being. Practically, these data can help inform educators’ decision on selecting activities that students might enjoy working on the most to incorporate in their courses, which could increase students’ well-being, albeit likely to a smaller degree than students who complete an entire course in positive psychology. To our knowledge, no one has ever assessed these outcomes.

Research Questions

The present study was motivated by the following research questions. Will completing a condensed positive psychology course relative to other condensed psychology courses:

Improve students’ well-being, specifically increase their happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing their levels of stress?

Improve students’ performance in the course and if so, what are the mechanisms underlying these changes?

Encourage students to share what they have learned in the course with their close others?

Encourage students to continue completing positive psychology activities following the completion of the course?

Method

Participants

Participants were 207 students at an ethnically diverse urban public institution in the southern United States who were enrolled in an online psychology course (six sections of positive psychology [n = 148] and two sections each of cognitive psychology [n = 33] and statistical methods [n = 26]) taught by the first author.¹ Twenty-nine students (positive: 16, cognitive: 6, statistics: 4) did not complete both parts of the study. The final sample size for the three classes were: 132, 27, and 22 for positive, cognitive, and statistics, respectively. The demographic information of the final sample size is in the top half of Table 1.

Table 1.

Participants’ Demographic and Academic Information.

			Positive psychology (n = 132)	Other psychology (n = 49)
Demographic	Age		28 years (8 years)	27 years (7 years)
	Gender	Female	85%	88%
		Male	15%	13%
	Ethnicity	Hispanic	58%	59%
		Black	19%	20%
		White	19%	10%
		Asian	3%	8%
		Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander	1%	2%
Academic	Credits		100 (18)	96 (27)
	GPA		3.18 (0.60)	3.06 (0.66)
	Major	Psychology	58%	78%

Notes. Values in parentheses denote standard deviation. GPA is on a scale from 0 to 4.

Our target sample size was based on a power analysis using G*Power 3.1.9.7 (Faul et al., 2007) that indicated the number of participants needed to detect a mixed-effect interactions, assuming a small-medium effect size (Cohen f = .175), with .90 power is 88 participants. Participants received extra credit in exchange for their participation. To ensure that participants did not feel pressured to complete the study, an alternative extra credit option was provided to the students. Furthermore, students were told that the instructor would not review their data from the study until after their final grades had been posted. The study was approved by the University's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects.

Design and Materials

The design and analyses of the present study were pre-registered using AsPredicted (https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=tf644g). The data for the present study are available upon request. The prompts for the positive psychology activities (described below) are uploaded to an online supplementary database (Cho, 2023).

Course Design

All courses (cognitive, positive, and statistical methods) were online, asynchronous, and awarded students three credits toward their undergraduate degree.² Both positive and cognitive psychology are upper-level courses, whereas statistics is a lower-level course. The courses were all 5 weeks long, with the exception that two of the positive psychology sections were offered as a 4-week long course. (The content and assignments of the 4-week and 5-week courses were identical.) The format of all courses was nearly identical. Students read chapters assigned from a textbook as well as the instructor-created PowerPoint slides, which were largely based on the materials in the assigned textbook. Knowledge of each set of readings was assessed via a multiple-choice quiz. Each week, students completed two to four sets of readings and assignments. Specific details regarding the positive psychology course are as follow:

Textbook and Course Content. The textbook used in the positive psychology course was Compton and Hoffman (2019). All but one chapter (chapter nine) were assigned to students. (The information for the unassigned chapter was excluded due to time constraints and because some of the content from that chapter overlapped with the other assigned materials.) Topics covered in the course included: (i) the origins of positive psychology, (ii) defining emotions, motivation, and different types of well-being, (iii) measuring well-being, (iv) flow, creativity, and peak performance, (v) love, (vi) well-being across cultures and the lifespan, (vii) religion and spirituality, (viii) creating positive institutions/environments, and (x) self-regulation and self-control.

Positive Psychology Activities. Participants completed five positive psychology activities, interspersed throughout the curriculum to coincide with the readings. These activities were recommended by the textbook authors. Based on previous research (see citations listed with each activity below), these activities have been shown to evoke positive emotions. All activities were completed by participants individually, graded, and are a part of students’ course grade. Except for the gratitude diary assignment, which participants completed throughout the course, the other assignments were assigned according to their relevance to the course content as recommended by the textbook authors. A more thorough description of each activity is listed in the online supplementary database.

Good things diary (Seligman et al., 2005): Students completed a weekly diary in which they wrote five good things that happened to them during that week. Additionally, students were asked to write a short causal explanation as to why the good thing happened to them.

Feelings of nostalgia (Zhou et al., 2008): Students wrote about three objects that evokes nostalgia, the feelings associated with each object, and why the objects evoke those feelings.

Identifying and overcoming stressors (Gustems-Carnicer & Calderón, 2013): Students identified three stressors in their lives. For each stressor, they listed (a) two ways to cope with the stressor, (b) possible obstacles with implementing the coping mechanisms they had identified, and (c) how to overcome those obstacles.

Acts of kindness (Nelson et al., 2016): Students performed five random acts of kindness. For each act, participants described the act, how performing it made them feel, whom it benefited (e.g., a stranger, classmate, friend, family member), and how the recipient responded.

Person(s) of admiration (Algoe & Hadit, 2009): Participants wrote a short paper describing a person (or people) that they admire. In their response, they were asked to address the following questions: ‘What qualities do they possess?’, ‘Why do they inspire you?’, ‘How can you learn from them and integrate their admirable qualities into your life?’

Videos. Students watched four TED or TEDx videos throughout the course. The topics of the video were: (a) the negative effects of greed and how to promote empathy and compassion toward the needy (Piff, 2013), (b) tips on maintaining a healthy relationship (Finkel, 2013), (c) the virtues of introversion (Cain, 2012), and (d) the development of self-control in children (Lee, 2016). The content of the videos overlapped with and helped to reinforce the ideas in the assigned readings. For each video, students answered comprehension questions.

Well-Being Measures

For all well-being measures, the mean value for each measure was computed for each participant.

Life Satisfaction. Life satisfaction was measured using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985). Students rated their agreement with five statements (e.g., “In most ways my life is close to ideal”), each on a 5-point Likert-style scale (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree); ω_Pre: .86,³ ω_Post: .88. A higher mean value indicates greater life satisfaction.

Stress. Perceived stress was measured using the Stress Scale (Cohen, 1988). Participants rated nine items on a 5-point Likert-style scale (e.g., “In the past week, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?”): scale rating from 0 = Never to 4 = Very often; ω_Pre: .86, ω_Post: .88. A higher mean value indicates a higher stress level.

Subjective Happiness. Happiness was measured using the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999), which consisted of four items that were rated on a 7-point Likert-style scale (e.g., “Some people are generally very happy. They enjoy life regardless of what is going on, getting the most out of everything. To what extent does this characterization describe you?”). The scale ranged from 1 = Not at all to 7 = A great deal; ω_Pre: .89, ω_Post: .87. A higher mean value indicates greater happiness.

Questions About the Course

Sharing Information from Class. Participants were asked whether they had been sharing what they had learned from the positive psychology class with close others (e.g., friends and family) in their personal lives. They responded using a 7-point Likert-type scale: 1 = Never to 7 = Every time.

Continuation of Activities Questionnaire. For each of the five positive psychology activities (discussed in the Positive Psychology Activities section above), students were asked whether they planned to continue practicing the activities after they have completed the course. Each activity was rated using a 5-point scale from 1 = Extremely unlikely to 5 = Extremely likely.

Academics and Demographics Information

Participants self-reported the following academic information⁴: (1) overall GPA, (2) number of total college credits accumulated, and (3) major or intended major. Participants self-reported the following demographic information: (1) age, (2) gender, and (3) race.

Procedure

The study consisted of two parts. The first part was completed during the first 2 days of class. Participants had three days, starting from the last day of class, to complete the second part. The link to the surveys, which were administered online using Qualtrics, was posted in each course's Blackboard page, which is where all the content for the course was likewise posted. Each part of the survey took approximately 15 min to complete, and participants completed it on their own device and at a time and place of their choosing within the prespecified time frame.

For both parts, participants completed the stress, happiness, and life satisfaction questionnaires first, with the order of the questionnaires administered in a different random order for each participant. In part one, these questionnaires were followed by the academic and demographic questionnaires. In part two, the well-being questionnaires were followed by the question that asked participants how often they had shared the information that they had learned in the course with their close others in their personal lives. Participants in the positive psychology course were then asked to rate how likely they were to continue working on each of the five positive psychology activities after they complete the course.

Results

Following the recommendation by Lakens (2013), the effect size for independent t-tests is reported as Cohen's d, and the effect size for paired t-tests is reported as d_z, which was computed using the following formula: $t / \sqrt{n}$ . When there were violations of the equal variance assumption required for the Student's t-test, as indicated by the Levene's test, Welch's t-test was reported instead. For repeated-measures analysis of variances (ANOVAs), the Greenhouse-Geisser correction was reported when the sphericity assumption was violated. The effect size for ANOVAs is generalized eta squared (η² _G ), where .01, .06, and .14 are considered small, medium, and large (Lakens, 2013). For contingency table analyses, Fisher's exact test was computed and reported in lieu of Pearson's chi-squared test whenever the expected frequency count of any cell is fewer than five.

Data from the 4-week positive psychology course were combined with those from the 5-week positive psychology course because there were no statistically significant differences between these two courses on the well-being outcomes and academic variables (i.e., credits, cumulative GPA, grade in course), Fs < 1.10, η² _G < .003, ts < |1.09|, ps > .28, ds < |0.21|. Similarly, there were no significant differences between the other psychology courses (cognitive psychology and statistical methods), Fs < 1.10, η² _G < .017, ts < |1.00|, ps > .34, ds < |.15| on these variables, and thus the data from these two 5-week courses were combined to increase the statistical power of the analyses in the control group.⁵ For thoroughness, we report all analyses, including those that disaggregated the two control groups when compared to the positive psychology course, in the online supplemental database (Cho, 2023; see Supplemental Tables S1–S3).

Demographic and Academic Characteristics

Participants’ demographic and academic characteristics are reported in Table 1. As can be seen in the table, many characteristics of students in both groups were highly comparable and not statistically different.⁶ One exception was that students who took statistics or cognitive psychology were 19% more like to be a psychology major compared to those taking positive psychology (78% vs. 58%), Χ²(1, N = 181) = 4.90, p = .03, V = 0.16. This difference is likely due to statistics being a required course, and cognitive psychology being one of the two courses that can satisfy a requirement in the psychology degree plan. In contrast, positive psychology is an elective course.

Subjective Well-Being

To assess changes in self-reported well-being, three separate two-way mixed ANOVAs, with time of measurement (pre vs. post) as the within-subjects variable, and course (positive psychology vs. other psychology courses) as the between-subjects variable, were computed. The results for life satisfaction, stress, and happiness are displayed in Figure 1(a) to (c), respectively. The main effect for course was significant for life satisfaction F(1, 179) = 4.83, p = .029, η² _G = .029, and not significant for stress and happiness, F(1, 179) = 1.94, p = .17, η² _G = .008, and F(1, 179) = 0.26, p = .61, η² _G = .001, respectively. The main effect for time of measurement was significant for all three outcomes: happiness, F(1, 179) = 6.84, p = .01, η² _G = .01; stress, F(1, 179) = 14.96, p < .001, η² _G = .022; and life satisfaction, F(1, 179) = 12.92, p < .001, η² _G = .01. Of most importance were the interactions. There was no interaction for happiness, F(1, 179) = 0.63, p = .428, η² _G < .001; positive, M_Pre = 4.85; SD_Pre = 1.17; M_Post = 5.06; SD_Post = 1.12; and other courses, M_Pre = 4.81; SD_Pre = 1.14; M_Post = 4.92; SD_Post = 1.11. The increase in happiness was comparable irrespective of the course taken; the main effect of course: F(1, 179) = 0.63, p = .43, η² _G < .001. However, the interactions for life satisfaction and stress were significant, F(1, 179) = 11.31, p < .001, η² _G = .008, and F(1, 179) = 6.76, p = .01, η² _G = .010, respectively. Follow-up post hoc comparisons revealed that there were no changes to life satisfaction (M_Pre = 3.11; SD_Pre = 0.74; M_Post = 3.12; SD_Post = 0.86), t(179) = −0.14, p = .89, d = −0.02; and stress (M_Pre = 3.39; SD_Pre = 0.34; M_Post = 3.35; SD_Post = 0.37), t(179) = 0.74, p = .46, d = −0.13, for students who took the other courses, but for students who completed positive psychology, they reported higher levels of life satisfaction (M_Pre = 3.23; SD_Pre = 0.92; M_Post = 3.60; SD_Post = 0.86), t(179) = 6.69, p < .001, d = 0.58; and lower levels of stress (M_Pre = 2.40; SD_Pre = 0.38; M_Post = 2.20; SD_Post = 0.38), t(179) = −6.22, p < .001, d = −0.51.

Figure 1.

Changes in subjective well-being by course type: (a) life satisfaction, (b) stress, and (c) happiness.

Course Outcomes

Students who completed positive psychology (M = 85.19, SD = 9.40) received a higher course grade than those who took a comparison course (M = 75.19, SD = 11.64), t = 5.95, p < .001, d = 0.99. To further investigate this difference, we conducted a parallel mediation analysis, with course as the predictor, course grade as the criterion, and each of the three well-being measures postcompletion of the course (i.e., time two) as the mediators.⁷ Well-being outcomes at postcourse completion (rather than precourse completion, aka time one) was used for two reasons: (a) the scores reflect changes as a result of taking the course and (b) it more clearly satisfies the conceptual timing property logically required for mediation analysis (i.e., the predictor preceded the mediator, which in turn preceded the criterion; Tate, 2015). For all models, the well-being outcome prescore (i.e., time one) was included as covariates to increase statistical control. (The results are similar without these covariates in the model.)

Parallel mediation is a superior approach to examine the effects of multiple mediators than are the more commonly used multiple single-mediator approach (Coutts & Hayes, 2022; Hayes, 2022). Specifically, parallel mediation allows one to assess the effect of a mediator while controlling for other mediators. In addition, this method allows one to statistically compare differences in the strength of the indirect effects. Following the recommendation of Coutts and Hayes (2022), statistical differences in indirect paths were assessed using the absolute difference method (e.g., |a₁b₁| – |a₂b₂|). The mediation analysis was computed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro v. 4.2 for R (Hayes 2022) based on 10,000 bootstrapped samples. Figure 2 reports the unstandardized coefficients for all paths along with their 95% confidence intervals. A path is statistically significant if the confidence interval does not overlap 0. (Significant paths are also bolded in Figure 2.) To demonstrate mediation, the indirect effect (i.e., a × b path) must be statistically significant.

Figure 2.

Parallel mediation model of course on students’ course grade mediated by (a) life satisfaction, (b) stress, and (c) happiness.

The results are displayed in Figure 2. Analyzing the indirect effects (a × b paths; see bottom of Figure 2), the analyses revealed that both life satisfaction and stress mediated the relationship between course and course grade. Although not required to show mediation, examining the a paths (predictor to mediator) showed that taking positive psychology significantly increased life satisfaction and decreased stress. The b paths (mediator to predictor) showed that both higher life satisfaction and lower stress levels increased course grade. Happiness was not a significant mediator nor were its paths (both a and b) significant. Post hoc pairwise comparisons of the indirect paths showed that the difference between life satisfaction and happiness and stress and happiness were significant, B = 1.45 [0.27, 2.80] and B = 1.12 [0.08, 2.27], respectively. However, the difference between life satisfaction and stress was not significant, B = 0.33 [ − 1.15, 1.91].

Students who completed positive psychology also indicated that they were more likely to share what they had been learning in the class with their friends and family compared to those taking a comparison course, M_Positive = 4.45; SD_Positive = 1.40; M_Comparison = 3.65; SD_Comparison = 1.32, t(179) = 3.44, p < .001, d = .58.

Positive Psychology Activities

Figure 3 shows the distribution of responses of participants’ self-reported likelihood of continuing to work on each of the five positive psychology activities that were assigned as part of the coursework after completion of the course. For all activities, more than 50% of participants indicated that they were at least somewhat likely to continue using the activity after the course has concluded. For each activity, a one-sample t-test (with undecided, which is the midpoint of the scale, as the null value) was computed to determine whether participants were more inclined than not in continuing to work on the activity following the conclusion of the course. The results showed that participants indicated they were more likely than not to continue working on all activities.⁸ Of all the activities, participants were most likely to continue performing random acts of kindness, F(3.54, 464.21) = 35.82, p < .001, η² _G = .123.

Figure 3.

Likelihood of continuing positive psychology activity.

Discussion

The primary purpose of the present study is to assess whether completing a positive psychology course improves students’ subjective well-being. The results of our study show that it does, congruent with previous research (e.g., Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Yaden et al., 2021). Yaden et al. were the first to report improvements in participants’ well-being who have completed an online, self-paced positive psychology course. We conceptually replicated their findings under more methodically rigorous conditions (e.g., using the same instructor, ensuring participants are motivated to do well in the course as the courses are credit-bearing and their grade in the course affects their GPA). Equally important, we extended their main findings by showing that completing a condensed 4-week to 5-week online asynchronous course (compared to their 10-week course) can improve students’ well-being (higher life satisfaction and lower stress). The latter finding furthers the accessibility of the benefits gained from completing a positive psychology course.

Although there was no difference in the change in happiness among students who took positive psychology compared to the other courses, this null difference, however, should be interpreted with some caution due to the possible lack of statistical power, as the change in increased happiness was numerically (but not statistically) greater among students in the positive psychology course compared to the comparison courses (0.21 vs. 0.11) with the effect size (i.e., d = 0.29) for the positive psychology course approaching medium. Overall, our finding introduces the possibility that the benefits of taking a positive psychology course can be achieved at a broad level and under a relatively short duration.

A noteworthy finding is that students who completed positive psychology attained a higher grade than those who completed the other psychology courses. The parallel mediation analysis, which details the mechanisms underlying this finding, showed that both life satisfaction and stress mediated the relationship between completing a course in positive psychology and participants’ grade in the course. This finding dovetails with well-established findings in the literature linking subjective well-being, which was higher for students taking positive psychology, to academic achievement (see Schneider & Preckel, 2017, for a meta-analysis). Furthermore, the parallel mediation analysis (specifically, the significant indirect mediator effects) provides some evidence that the higher final grade in the positive psychology course cannot be merely attributed to the course being “easier.” Rather, the improved course grade was due to positive psychology bolstering students’ subjective well-being, specifically, improving life satisfaction while decreasing stress levels. Although happiness was not a significant mediator, there was suggestive evidence that students completing positive psychology were likewise happier. Thus, the lack of statistical significance could be due to a lack of power and should be investigated in future research. To our knowledge, we are the first to delineate the mechanisms that underly the benefits associated with completing a positive psychology course on students’ course grade.

It should be noted that participants taking positive psychology and the other courses were statistically equivalent on their demographics and prior academic achievements, namely number of credits attained (i.e., class standing) and cumulative GPA. Thus, the effects reported in the present study are unlikely caused by differences in preexisting aptitude of students taking positive psychology compared to the other courses. However, because positive psychology was an elective course, whereas the control courses were required, there is a possibility that differences in the final course grade could be due, in part, to a self-selection bias that could result in higher levels of intrinsic motivation among students taking positive psychology. Also, because the instructor was not blind to the hypotheses, the possibility of an experimenter expectancy effect cannot be ruled out. As a mitigation measure of the latter concern, we note that for all classes, at least 70% of participants’ final grades were determined by multiple-choice assessments with the remaining assignments graded via detailed rubrics. Thus, nearly all of participants’ final grade are composed of objective assessment measures.

Extending the results of previous similar studies (Goodmon et al., 2016; Lambert et al., 2019; Maybury, 2013; Smith et al., 2021; Yaden et al., 2021), we showed that students who completed the positive psychology course were more likely to share what they had been learning in the course with others in their lives. Furthermore, about 80% of participants indicated that they would continue to perform random acts of kindness toward others. These findings suggest that the virtues of taking positive psychology extend to both the individual taking the course and their community (i.e., a spillover effect). To our knowledge, we are the first to report these findings.

The fact that positive psychology can produce broad, impactful changes in a person's life should not be surprising. Indeed, in such a course, students not only learn about how to maximize one's happiness through a variety of methods (e.g., developing a healthy mindset and character virtues), but more important, students apply these concepts and principles in their lives. Thus, completing activities such as performing random acts of kindness, which was one of the most well-received activities reported by students in the current study, reinforces the principle that it is more gratifying to give than to receive (Curry et al., 2018; Dunn et al., 2014) by helping them enact that philosophy.

Conclusions

Future Research and Implications for Educators and Institutions

The results of the current study present many fruitful follow-ups for future research and implications for educators. Furthering the present study's emphasis on improving well-being on a wide-reaching level, future research can focus on whether embedding some of the more popular (and likely engaging) positive psychology activities examined in the present study (e.g., random acts of kindness) in other courses can improve students’ well-being, albeit likely to a smaller degree than would taking a full course in positive psychology (see also Tov et al., 2022, for a review of topics related to well-being that instructors could include in their other psychology courses).

As noted earlier, students taking positive psychology indicated that they were likely to continue working on the various positive psychology activities postcompletion of the course, suggesting that the benefits of taking the course will endure. This conjecture is supported by the findings in Seligman et al. (2005). As noted in the Introduction section, their participants completed a diary assignment in which they wrote about good things that happened in their life every night for 1 week. They reported that postcompletion of the activity, participants’ happiness level in the diary group was higher and depressive symptoms were lower than those of the control group for at least 6 months, which is the longest timepoint they included in their study. In the present study, 86% of participants in the positive psychology course indicated they were at least somewhat likely to continue working on the assignment that asked them to write down good things that happened in their life. Consequently, this finding bodes well for the possibility that the presently observed benefits measured in the short term will indeed endure (see also Lambert et al., 2019, who reported that their participants’ improved well-being persisted for at least 3 months after completing a positive psychology course), although this should be verified in future research.

In addition to improving well-being, an intriguing possibility is whether the principles extolled in positive psychology can serve as a catalyst to improve students overall academic achievement. If so, this could be one effective method in reducing equity gaps in higher education. For example, research shows that first-generation and nontraditional college students, a growing demographic in higher education, often underperform (Redford & Hoyer, 2017) and have different needs (Cho, 2019; Cho & Serrano, 2020) relative to their traditional college-student counterparts such as experiencing a greater variety of daily stressors in their lives (Zajacova et al., 2005).

Overall, given the academic and health benefits of taking a positive psychology course, in conjunction with the broad appeal and applicability of the course content to students’ daily lives, we encourage institutions to consider making such a course required for all majors, but especially among psychology majors. Indeed, a positive psychology course satisfies many of the learning goals outlined in the APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major (American Psychological Association, 2016). For example, the various positive psychology activities students complete satisfies many of the subgoals in the “Professional Development” criterion of the guidelines such as applying psychological content and principles to career goals and exhibiting self-efficacy and self-regulation. Furthermore, we recommend institutions to encourage students to take a positive psychology course early in their academic studies. These implementations would further allow for assessing the generality of the present findings, which was conducted on a predominantly female sample and students majoring in psychology.

In summary, the findings from the current study are congruent with those of past research that taking a positive psychology course is beneficial to students’ well-being (e.g., Yaden et al., 2021). They are likewise supportive of previous findings that completing positive psychology activities for a short duration can increase well-being (Seligman et al., 2005; Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). Students in the current study reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction after taking a 4-week to 5-week positive psychology course. Increasing students’ well-being can also lead to increased academic achievement. Overall, the results from the current study present a promising intervention that can be used to increase students’ well-being and can be delivered using an accessible, cost-effective method at a large scale.

Footnotes

Author Note

This article was supported by the Funded Faculty Leave and Organized Research and Creative Activities grants from the University of Houston-Downtown. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, KWC, upon reasonable request. The authors report there are no conflict of interests to declare. The study was approved by the University's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, and all participants consented to participating in the study.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of Houston-Downtown, (grant number Funded Faculty Leave, Organized Research and Creative Activities).

ORCID iD

Kit W. Cho

Open Practices

For publishing their materials and preregistered, Cho and Frizzell received badges for open materials and Preregistered. The public content may be retrieved from https://osf.io/6p9j5/.

Notes

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