Waimairi School (TLIF 4–039) - Building psychological capital for learning and wellbeing Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: Waimairi School (TLIF 4–039) - The teachers at Waimairi School believed they needed to challenge and change some of their practices that focussed on what was ‘wrong’ with students’ behaviour, mindset, motivation or achievement levels, rather than on helping students develop positive states of mind towards them.
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) led by Kiri Anngow and Lynley Cummack
Date Published: July 2020
Overview
They wanted to shift away from language and practices around responding to crises, to understanding that being in a positive state of mind is the best time to learn ways of coping with challenge — of building the psychological capital (psycap) of the school community.
There were definitely situations that did not require as much empathy as I was giving, … which was not really helping them to make any forward progress. I cut right back on the empathy and found that both [child] and [child] especially began to respond. [Child] has made some wonderful progress, providing him the attention he needed for the right reasons and not for the other reasons seemed to help.
Teacher observation of target students
The teachers believed that by growing their own psychological capability, they could also grow that of students. Therefore, they planned micro intervention focused on teachers that was intended to precede a series of inquiries focused more on students. The construction of a Psycap Measurement Tool was intended as a first step – a means of catalysing change by helping teachers recognise that their actions were not always consistent with their espoused values and beliefs and that this had negative impacts on students.
As can often happen, the inquiry did not go quite as intended. Data from the tool asking for students’ self-perceptions did not align with what could be seen in practice, and the school found it difficult to maintain momentum with their whānau and community. However, there were positive outcomes for both teacher and students. The big learning was that psychological capital cannot be built in a hurry. It needs to be built over time and involve the whole school.
The inquiry story
This inquiry began with all staff, and then unfolded in two micro-interventions, each involving four to five teachers. Its focus was on teacher wellbeing and that of students who had issues with anxiety, depression, or bullying.
What was the focus?
In a previous TLIF project (TLIF1–148, Improve teachers’ learning to lift priority learners’ mathematics achievement), teachers at Waimairi School succeeded in raising student confidence, enjoyment, and achievement in mathematics and in developing more effective, learning-focused relationships with parents and whānau. Building on the inquiry skills they had developed, and shared amongst other staff, the school’s TLIF inquiry focused on a new priority, that of fostering psychological capital or ‘psycap’.
Psycap has four pillars: Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism (HERO). It originated in literature on positive psychology within organisations and has been linked to satisfaction in work and in life.
The school identified psycap as a priority for the following reasons:
- A range of data (for example, Wellbeing at School, Happiness at School) indicated that psychological issues were a barrier to achievement for some students and that positive wellbeing lessened as students got older. Parents and whānau had mixed perceptions about how well the school was attending to their children’s learning and wellbeing.
- Teachers knew the importance of responding positively to challenging behaviour, seeing it in context and as an opportunity for learning. But analysis of behavioural and pastoral incident notes revealed that, in practice, their responses to behavioural incidents were dominated by the use of sanctions and talk of consequences.
- Nationally, there is increasing emphasis on the need to take a holistic approach to wellbeing, especially for those who are vulnerable.
The school crafted the following innovation statement:
We would like to know if collectively building psycap in a school setting will have an impact on learning, wellbeing and behaviour for targeted groups of students, staff, and whānau.
Initially, the inquiry was intended to address three questions:
- What is our current psycap state?
- When we come to understand our school’s psycap state, what does research suggest we consider when designing our micro-innovations (interventions)?
- How can we see the impact of our actions?
The team hoped to help teachers align their practices with their values and beliefs and with research evidence about what works to foster psycap in staff and then in students. They wanted to spread shared understandings, strategies, and language across students, whānau, and staff. Ultimately, they anticipated that higher levels of psycap across the community would help grow learning and wellbeing for all members of the school community, especially students.
What did the teachers try?
The team began by strengthening the understanding of teachers and parents about what psycap is, exploring their baseline data, and developing a Psycap Measurement Tool. They hoped that the new tool would generate information about changes in student perceptions of their psychological capital that could be used as a catalyst to help prompt shifts in teacher responses to challenging behaviour. The plan was then to run a series of ‘micro innovations’, the first focused on the teachers in the team and the later ones on their students.
The first micro-intervention provided the opportunity for a group of teachers to attend a series of workshops that were designed to help them grow the pillars of Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism (HERO). The workshops were intended to challenge deep-seated assumptions and beliefs about themselves and their ways of thinking, talking, and responding to challenging student behaviour. The workshops included opportunities for teachers to:
- become more aware of stressors in their own lives and of how they needed to care for their own wellbeing in order to care for that of others
- explore the idea that empathy can be a ‘double-edged sword’ and that it can be necessary to depersonalise interactions in order to make better decisions
- learn to be more specific and positive in the language used to talk with and about students and their behaviour.
In weekly discussions, the teachers shared ways they were learning to look after themselves, their successes, issues, and alternative pathways to addressing difficulties. As they did so, they made explicit connections to the four pillars. At the same time, all staff were provided with opportunities to learn more about students’ backstories so that they could respond to them more empathetically.
The second micro-innovation built on the first, with teachers using activities from Sparklers to teach participatory skills and help set the foundation for social and emotional learning. Sparklers is a mental health and wellbeing programme for students in years 1–8. The activities are organised around seven topics: Balancing energy, Managing emotions, Using our senses, Noticing our world, Being ourselves, Feeling good, and Showing kindness.
Four classes and five teachers participated. The teachers were presented with guidelines regarding how many activities to teach, and how often, and a template for planning and record keeping. Data from these four classes was compared to data from five other classes in order to identify the impact on students’ strategy use, relationships, and behaviour. Four students from each class were selected for focus, all of whom exhibited signs of anxiety, depression, or bullying.
What happened as a result of this innovation?
The Psycap Measurement Tool revealed that overall, students and whānau felt confident to engage with school staff and hopeful with respect to achieving their goals. They have optimistic dispositions and see themselves as capable of managing adversity. However, these findings did not align with students’ actions, as revealed through analysis of data in the student management system, and so the tool did not prove effective in creating the information the team was seeking as a catalyst for improvement. The team surmised that students had learned the language of hope, optimism, efficacy, and resilience in response to previous work that involved, for example, using SOLO and developing a growth mindset. However, they did not necessarily have the skills needed to implement this in practice. Teachers scored high in all areas, except for resilience.
The first micro-innovation did not result in as big a shift as had been hoped in aligning teacher practices with their values, beliefs, and research evidence. However, teachers involved in the first micro intervention have:
- grown in self-efficacy and resilience
- become more aware of and responsive to their own well-being and learned to acknowledge and avoid stressors
- become more positive, deliberate, and specific in the language they use to talk about the target students and how they behave and express their emotions
- put boundaries in place, achieved better work life balance, and reflected on their accountability for their actions and choices.
In addition, knowing more about students’ back stories has led to a general increase in teachers’ acknowledgement and understanding of certain behaviours.
The second micro innovation was directly targeted at students. It revealed that the intentional incorporation of Sparkler activities:
- validated students’ feelings
- enabled students to express themselves more fully
- provided for explicit teaching around emotions
- provided students with useful strategies to manage their emotions.
What did they learn?
Learning from this project included the following:
- “It’s a long game.” Staff need to come from a place of positivity, growth, resilience, and gratitude in order to face life’s challenges. This is good for them, their own families, and the students they teach. Fostering HOPE in students will benefit them through their lives.
- Sparklers had a notable positive impact in just eight weeks. But for it to be truly useful in the long run, the language and strategies it teaches need to be linked to the school’s values and spread across all classes.
- It was important to explicitly teach the language of positive wellbeing, to celebrate success, and to adopt a learning mindset when things did not work out as planned.
- The ‘long game’ needs to include finding strategies to involve parents, many of whom have expertise in wellbeing. However, it seems that creating the right foundation and climate ‘inside the school gate’ may be a necessary first step before reaching out to the wider community.
- It was important for the school that this inquiry was localised to Waimairi. The approach they took was unique and did not result in a ‘recipe’ that could be taken ‘as is’ to other schools.
Inquiry team
Kiri Anngow and Lynley Cummack led the project. They assembled a diverse project team who brought a wide range of perspectives. It included school leaders and teachers, support staff, and the school’s SENCO. The membership of each micro-innovation team was based upon the specific expertise it required. The following people participated in the two interventions: Kiri Anngow, Lynley Cummack, Kirsty Hay, Kelsey Fairburn, Gregg Smith, and Katrina McLaughlan, Danielle Donehue, Sue Howard, Tina Dower, Deidre Hull, Katie Lord, Amy Deverson, Tracy Campbell, Monique O’Sullivan and Mike Anderson.
The project had two critical friends:
- Dr. Catherine Savage (Kaha Education)
- Tony Burkin (InterLEAD).
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leaders Kiri Anngow and Lynley Cummack at kiri.anngow@waimairi.school.nz or lynley.cummack@waimairi.school.nz
Reference list
Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The progress principle. Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press.
Biggs, J., & Collis, K. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy. New York: Academic Press.
Clapp-Smith, R., Vogelgesang, G. R., & Avey, J. B. (2009). Authentic leadership and positive psychological capital: The mediating role of trust at the group level of analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organisational Studies, 15(3), 227–240.
Dawkins, S., Tian, A., Newman, A., & Martin, A. (2015). Psychological Ownership: A Review and Research Agenda. Journal of Organizational Behaviour.
Dweck, C. (2016). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York. Random House.
Hone, L., & Quinlan, D. (2019). Working towards wellbeing. Set: Research Information for Teachers, (1), 50–53.
Mathe-Soulek, K., Scott-Halsell, S., Kim, S., Krawczyk, M. 2014. Psychological capital in the quick service restaurant industry: a study of unit-level performance. J. Hosp. Tour. Res.
Memili, E., Welsh, D., & Luthans, F. 2013. Going beyond research on goal setting: a proposed role for organizational psychological capital of family firms. Entrep. Theory Pract. 37:1289–96.
Nuthall, G. (2007) The Hidden Lives of Learners. Wellington. NZCER Press.
Peterson, C., & Chang, E. 2002. Optimism and flourishing. In Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well-Lived, ed. C Keyes, J Haidt, Washington, DC: Am. Psychol. Assoc. pp. 55–79.
Luthans, F., & Youssef-Morgan, C. 2017. Psychological Capital: An evidence-based positive approach. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. (4), 339–366.
Slavin, Stuart J., Schindler, Debra, Chibnall, John T., Fendell, Ginny, & Shoss, Mindy. (2012). PERMA: A model for institutional leadership and culture change.Academic Medicine: November 2012 — Volume 87 — Issue 11 — p 1481. doi:10.1097/ACM.0b013e31826c525a
Sparklers: https://sparklers.org.nz/
Navigation
Contact TLIF
If you have any questions about TLIF projects, please contact us at:
Email: TLIF Mailbox