Mindfulness in Higher Education: Students’ Journey in a University Mindfulness Course

Abstract

This first-of-its-kind study examined the teaching of mindfulness as a curriculum for more holistic and integrated adult learning in higher education. The study adopted an interpretive phenomenological analysis to understand how students made meaning of the mindfulness curriculum. Data was collected through weekly critical reflective journals and one face-to-face semistructured interviews of 12 students and analyzed using double hermeneutics. The study showed that teaching mindfulness as a course can provide opportunities for transformation and foster a culture of compassion in learning spaces. The curriculum approach to teaching mindfulness fostered a nuanced, authentic, and comprehensive experience and learning of mindfulness. It allowed students to experience a deeper self-awareness, greater well-being, nonjudgment, discernment, compassion for self and others, discomfort of the practices, and glimpses of wisdom and profound transformation. The study suggests that this curriculum approach to teaching mindfulness balances theory and practice and allows students to be immersed in the practices, giving them time and space to experience, understand, and learn from their journey. The course and this research are an invitation to educators and higher education institutions to adopt contemplative pedagogies and teach mindfulness as a curriculum.