A Development of an Instructional Model in Mental Health Education Based on Positive Psychology Theory and Collaborative Learning Approach to Enhance Self-emotional Regulation Ability for University Students in China

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to: 1) study students' self-emotional regulation problems, and how positive psychology theory and collaborative learning approach can be implemented to enhance self-emotional regulation ability for university students in China, 2) develop and assess the quality of an instructional model, 3) study the results of university students' self-emotional regulation ability after the implementation of an instructional model and 4) students' satisfaction with an instructional model. Four research and development steps were used for instructional model development. The instructional model was implemented with 40 freshmen from Guangxi University of Science and Technology in China. This class was selected by clustered random sampling from a total of 10 classes, that was class 1 to 10. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test dependable, and content analysis.

The research findings are revealed as follows:

1. The findings of studying students' self-emotional regulation problems and how positive psychology theory and collaborative learning approach can be implemented are presented as follows:

1.1 The findings of studying students' self-emotional regulation problems revealed that students face both personal and non-personal problems.

1.2 The findings of experts' interviews on how positive psychology theory and collaborative learning approach are implemented to enhance students' self-emotional regulation ability are presented as follows:

Positive psychology promotes a positive mindset as vital and that it should involve creating a positive and safe learning environment, fostering positive interpersonal relationships, providing strengths-based feedback and appreciation that help encourage students to identify and use positive self-evaluations, and emphasizing personal growth and development. Collaborative learning involves active student participation and interaction. The results of the interviews showed that group dialogue, jigsaw activities, group discussions, and Q-and-A exercises could enhance students' self-emotional regulation ability.

2. The findings of an instructional model development and quality assessment revealed that:

2.1 An instructional model was developed with 5 components including principle, objective, content, learning process, and evaluation. The instructional model consisted of 5 steps.

2.2 The developed instructional model was at the highest level of appropriateness (X̅= 4.59, S.D.= 0.69), and the instructional model manual was at the highest ( X̅= 4.51, S.D.= 0.80).

2.3 The instructional model based on positive psychology theory and collaborative learning approach had an effective index of 0.55.

3. Students' self-emotional regulation ability after the implementation of the instructional model was significantly higher than before at 0.01.

4. Students' satisfaction with the instructional model learning process was at the highest level (X̅=4.78, SD= 0.47). Students expressed positive views towards an instructional model learning process.

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