Effectiveness of a Group Psychological Intervention to Enhance Student Subjective Well-being of High School Students at Pathein, Myanmar: A Mixed-method Study

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19466411

Min Thit Lwin¹, Rajitha Menon², and Hla Myat Phyu³ (Karuna Mission Social Solidarity-Pathein (KMSS), Myanmar, Asia¹ and
Graduate School of Human Sciences, Assumption University of Thailand, Asia^2,3)

For this study, the researcher explores the effectiveness of a psychological intervention specifically tailored for Burmese high school students from Pathein to increase their well-being. In this paper, well-being is defined as joyful learning, school connectedness, education purpose, and academic self-efficacy. The researcher used explanatory sequential mixed-method design for this study. There is a total of 170 high school students who participated in this study and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Then, the researcher customized a 45-minute group intervention sessions which included gratitude exercises, affirmations, vision boards, goal-setting exercises using the PERMA framework. To assess well-being of students, the Student Subjective Well-being Questionnaire (SSWQ) was implemented before and after the intervention. After collecting quantitative data, 15 participants from the experimental group were chosen for semi-structured interviews to understand lived experiences. According to the quantitative results, the experimental group showed significantly higher well-being scores after the intervention in all four components of well-being compared to the control group (p<.05). Large effect sizes are also reported, especially in academic self-efficacy, meaning the intervention is effective and practical. From the qualitative findings, there are five themes from the participants: clarification of their purpose of studying and personal goals, feeling optimistic and motivated toward schoolwork, better regulation of their own emotions, increased school-related engagement, and improving social connections with peers. These findings suggest that culturally adaptable positive psychological intervention is needed for young adults in Myanmar to improve their well-being. Integrating these results into school can increase resilience, well-being, educational purpose, and reduce loneliness.