How to Make Students Happy During Periods of Online Learning: The Effect of Playfulness on University Students' Study Outcomes.

Yuqian Li,Xiao He,Fengfei Hu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.753568

Yuqian Li, Xiao He + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.753568

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Abstract

University students’ study outcomes, their psychological wellbeing in particular, have been considered closely by both education researchers and practitioners. It is worth exploring ways to improve the quality of life of students, especially during the pandemic period when millions of students around the world have taken online courses at home. This paper tests the influence of playfulness on the levels of life satisfaction and school burnout of college students. To examine our hypotheses, we distributed our survey to 353 Chinese university students (mean age 20.10 years) in their online learning semester in 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Correlation analysis and path analysis were applied to analyze the data. The results show that playfulness positively relates to life satisfaction and negatively correlates to school burnout. Moreover, a sense of control mediates these relationships. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Highlights

Various studies have revealed a growing interest in the mental health of university students (Hunt and Eisenberg, 2010; Kraft, 2011; Gulliver et al, 2019)
Playfulness positively relates to sense of control (r = 0.25, p < 0.01) and life satisfaction (r = 0.28, p < 0.01), but negatively relates to school burnout (r = – 0.14, p < 0.01)
The correlation analysis results show that students high in playfulness are likely to endorse a high sense of control

Summary

Introduction

Various studies have revealed a growing interest in the mental health of university students (Hunt and Eisenberg, 2010; Kraft, 2011; Gulliver et al, 2019). The issue of university students’ life quality has become significant (Benjamin and Hollings, 1995), and studies focusing on the quality of life have greatly increased in the past two decades (Rapley, 2003; Sirgy, 2012; Murgaš, 2016). This seems more important since the beginning of 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19.

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