Evaluating a Psychoeducation Program to Foster Chinese Primary School Students' Covitality.

Min Fang,Jiashu Xie,Dachen Pan,Li Zhang

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168703

Abstract

This investigation evaluated the Growth Psychoeducation Intervention (GPI) designed to increase primary school students’ covitality, a construct describing the beneficial combinatorial effects of positive psychological skills and mindsets. Students with higher covitality levels have stronger relationships with their teachers and classmates, and behave in more positive ways. This GPI intervention study employed a pretest-posttest-follow quasi-experimental design to evaluate a culturally adapted group counseling intervention designed to foster Chinese senior primary school students’ (n = 189, ages 9–12 years) covitality levels. The hypothesis was that covitality increases would positively correlate with school belonging and life satisfaction and less frequent bullying victimization. The Social Emotional Health Survey-Primary (SEHS-P) assessed the effectiveness of the GPI eight-week program to promote mental health and decrease bullying. GPI demonstrated effectiveness by improving students’ covitality and school belonging and reducing bullying victimization.

Highlights

Chinese senior primary school students are in the crucial childhood-to-adolescence developmental stage as they matriculate into junior middle school
The primary aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chinese culturally relevant Growth Psychoeducation Intervention (GPI) to reduce bullying victimization and enhance covitality
For the third-grade GPI treatment class, all Social Emotional Health Survey-Primary (SEHS-P) posttest scores were significantly higher than the pretest scores, with large effect size differences (d > 0.80)

Summary

Introduction

Chinese senior primary school students are in the crucial childhood-to-adolescence developmental stage as they matriculate into junior middle school During this stage, adolescent psychological and mental health levels are closely related to their current learning and life quality, and crucial to their subsequent adaptation to adolescence, a significant transition period of children’s psychological development [1]. Contemporary China is experiencing social change and rapid economic expansion Accompanying these social forces, children experience increasingly fierce competition during the primary school to junior high transition [2]. Chinese senior primary school students are increasingly expected to engage in academic tasks independently Managing these developmental tasks can shape children’s well-being by increasing anxiety and depression, and even extend into adulthood with impaired social, familial, and academic functioning [3]. Whether on-campus or off-campus, in China psychological services are minimal [6]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion