Capstone title and abstract
Title:
One Hell of an Opportunity: Bringing Positive Psychology to Community College
Abstract:
In the last decade, research from positive psychology (a field of science that investigates the traits, skills, and environments necessary for human flourishing) has made its way into schools around the world and has greatly improved student outcomes. However, there has never been a major positive psychology effort at U.S. community colleges. This is a significant missed opportunity. Community colleges have enormous potential to improve the well-being of individuals and thus society, but much of this potential is not being realized. Despite decades of college/retention research and initiatives, just 39% of community college students successfully complete their studies. In the last few years, however, positive psychology has developed a remarkably effective technique for improving school-wide student flourishing (including raising academic achievement) in secondary schools. This approach aligns with much of what community college completion/retention research indicates is needed to improve student success. Moreover, this positive psychology approach was recently instituted at a large university in Mexico with a part-time undergraduate program that strongly resembles U.S. community colleges. That program’s first-year retention rate has already risen 20%. This capstone project details research from both positive psychology and community colleges, discusses how each offers significant opportunities to the other, and provides an application plan for bringing the two together.
