How university students understand and demonstrate kindness

Date:
September 20, 2021
Source:
University of British Columbia Okanagan campus
Summary:
A small act of kindness can go a long way, especially say
researchers, towards bolstering student health and wellness. A new
study explores how the inclusion of a kindness assignment in an
undergraduate course impacted student perceptions of themselves,
their peers and their campus.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A small act of kindness can go a long way, especially say UBC Okanagan researchers, towards bolstering student health and wellness.


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Dr. John-Tyler Binfet, associate professor in the School of Education
and Dr.

Sally Stewart, associate professor of teaching in the School of Health
and Exercise Sciences recently published a study that explores how the inclusion of a kindness assignment in an undergraduate course impacted
student perceptions of themselves, their peers and their campus.

While there have been several studies that have assessed the effects
of kindness on wellbeing, there has been limited research into how university-aged students understand and enact kindness, says Dr. Binfet.

Thousands of university students returned to class across Canada
in September, and Dr. Binfet notes that while living in the times of
COVID-19 every act of kindness goes a long way.

"We know being kind yields a number of wellbeing benefits, such as stress reduction, happiness and peer acceptance, and we know mental health
impacts learning," says Dr. Binfet. "The post-secondary environment is
often the last training ground to prepare students for life so we want
to understand how we can prepare students for optimal mental health
as adults." For the study, volunteer students provided self-reports
to determine the extent they see themselves as kind in online and
face-to-face interactions, and how connected they felt to their peers
and the campus. The students were then asked to plan and complete five
kind acts for one week.



==========================================================================
The participants completed 353 kind acts with the main themes of helping others, giving, demonstrating appreciation and communicating. Students
that completed at least three of the five planned acts of kindness self-reported significantly higher scores of in-person kindness and
peer connectedness.

"This research can help students realize that there is evidence behind
how and why people are kind, and that kindness does impact health and wellbeing," says Dr. Stewart. "It also has an incredible impact for
teaching in higher education as it provides insight into where students
are at with their practice and understanding of kindness in order to build
the groundwork for inclusion of this topic within educational practices
and course content areas." While there are on-campus wellbeing resources available to students at most post-secondary schools, this research demonstrates that by including wellbeing initiatives into coursework,
it's easier for more students to engage in those activities and receive benefits without added effort. The study also demonstrated that a curriculum-based kindness intervention would be well received by students.

"We found that the students loved the assignment," says Dr. Stewart. "For
some, it helped them realize that kindness is a skill that they can learn
to do better and that there are many ways to be kind. For others, it
helped them realize that they already do kind things. It reinforced their desire and intention of doing more kind acts." For years, Dr. Binfet's research has focused on elevating the discussion of kindness, and he has previously completed studies on how children and adolescents perceive
and enact kindness.

"With this research, we now see alignment in how university students
and school-age participants define kindness -- to them it means actions
that can improve the lives of others. Often, it's simple things such as
being polite and helping others," says Dr. Binfet.

The research was published in the Journal of Further and Higher Education
and supported by a humanities and social sciences research grant.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_British_Columbia_Okanagan_campus. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. John-Tyler Binfet, Sally Willis-Stewart, Adam Lauze, Freya
L. L. Green,
Zakary A. Draper, Brittany Calibaba. Understanding university
students' conceptualizations and perceptions of kindness: A mixed
methods study.

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2021; 1 DOI: 10.1080/
0309877X.2021.1967895 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210920100912.htm

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