Caleon, Imelda S.

2018, Nie, Youyan, Tan, Jennifer Pei-Ling, Tan, Chee Soon, King, Ronnel B., Kalthom Ahmad, Caleon, Imelda S.

2024, Tan, Oon Seng, Low, Ee Ling, Caleon, Imelda S., Ng, Ee Lynn

2024, Caleon, Imelda S., Munirah Shaik Kadir, Tan, Chee Soon, Ong, Chin Leng, Zhou, Jessica

2023, Tan, Michelle Yuen Sze, Caleon, Imelda S.

Implicit within the reform efforts in Science Education is the necessity for teachers to shift from transmissionist approaches to constructivist teaching approaches; the former emphasizes unproblematic transfer of a fixed set of ideas from credible sources to students while the latter puts primacy on students’ role in knowledge construction. Teachers’ beliefs may influence the implementation of reform initiatives; conversely, enactment of reform efforts may affect teachers’ beliefs. Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning, and their perceptions of their students, have been the subject of a limited and yet expanding body of research that intends to enhance the likelihood of enacting curriculum reforms that can promote students’ meaningful learning. The focus of this article is to understand how teachers’ beliefs influence classroom decisions that determine students’ learning spaces and processes within the context of implementing school reforms.

2020, Caleon, Imelda S., Nur Qamarina Ilham

This study examines the association of gratitude and general altruism with positive school relationships and well-being. The study involved 190 secondary students from Singapore. The results of the multiple regression analyses indicated that gratitude was a significant predictor of general altruism, relationships with teachers and classmates and well-being (i.e., life satisfaction). The results of the study indicated that altruism was not a significant predictor of positive school relationships and school well-being. Our data also did not support the indirect relationship of gratitude with the key outcomes covered in the study via altruism. The results of the study provide preliminary evidence that receiving and appreciating benefits from others have stronger links to positive school relationships and well-being than doing prosocial acts for others.

2020, King, Ronnel B., Caleon, Imelda S.

Psychological capital (psycap) pertains to the psychological resources of hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism. It has received much attention in the industrial-organizational literature and is related to a wide range of adaptive job-related outcomes. However, most of these studies have been conducted on adult populations and the role of psycap in the school context has not been given enough attention. The current study aimed to develop a measure of psycap for the school context and examined how it was associated with academic-related (e.g., motivation, engagement, achievement) and well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, affect) outcomes among school-aged populations. Study 1 (N = 1159) demonstrated that the School Psychological Capital Questionnaire developed in this study had excellent psychometric properties. School psycap positively predicted optimal motivation and engagement. Study 2, a cross-sectional study conducted among high school students (N = 246), revealed that school psycap was associated with optimal academic and well-being outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

2017, Jonathan, Christin, Tan, Jennifer Pei-Ling, Koh, Elizabeth, Caleon, Imelda S., Tay, Siu Hua

Although learning analytics (LA) dashboard visualizations are increasingly being used to provide feedback to students, literature on the effectiveness of LA dashboards has been inconclusive. To address this, a LA student dashboard visualizing students’ latest data against their own data from previous weeks (i.e., self-referenced data) was designed – informed by Fredrickson’s (2004) broaden-and-build theory, as well as studies highlighting personal best goals (Martin & Elliot, 2016) and the negative effects of peer comparisons (Corrin & de Barba, 2014). The self-referenced LA student dashboard was implemented and evaluated in a Singapore secondary school as part of a larger study, WiREAD. This paper reports on the quantitative impact of the WiREAD self-referenced LA dashboard visualizations on 15-year-old students’ critical reading fluency, cognitive reading engagement, and English language (EL) self-efficacy, as well as students’ qualitative feedback on the usefulness and shortcomings of the LA dashboard.

2020, Caleon, Imelda S., King, Ronnel B., Liem, Gregory Arief D., Tan, Chee Soon, Tan, Jennifer Pei-Ling, Lam, Rachel, Nur Qamarina Ilham

This research had a two-fold objective. The first objective was to develop an intervention programme that was grounded on positive psychology and tailored for academically at-risk students, that is, students who, by and large, achieved lower aggregate scores than the cohort mean in the national test given at the end of primary education. The second objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of each of the components of the intervention programme in terms of improving positive emotions, well-being, and academic outcomes of academically at-risk students.
Three positive psychology interventions (PPIs) were developed to form the intervention programme. Each PPI comprised five core activities, with a wrap-up session that was conducted after the core activities. The Gratitude PPI comprised the following activities: Gratitude Collage, Counting Blessings, Mental Subtraction, Facing Challenges with Gratitude, and Gratitude Card. The Hope PPI featured activities such as Goal Setting and Goal Mapping, Journaling, Best Possible Self, Savouring Success, and Sharing Formula for Success. The Strengths PPI involved activities such as Identification of Top Strengths, Journaling about Top Strengths, Identification of Signature Strengths, Journaling about Signature Strengths and then Create a Superhero.
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the PPIs involved six sub-studies, with two sub-studies tied to each PPI. For each PPI, the first sub-study, which utilised a quasi-experimental design, served as the first trial to test the impact of the PPI and identify areas for improvement; the second sub-study utilized a split-plot experimental design (i.e., each participating class was randomly split into group A and B and all students in group A formed the intervention group while all students in Group B formed the control group). The six sub-studies involved 305 academically at-risk students.
The results of four sub-studies support the potential of two (i.e., Hope and Gratitude PPIs) out three PPIs in cultivating positive emotions and well-being, and enhancing adaptive motivation and learning strategies. In terms of promoting students’ well-being, the effect of the Gratitude PPI was found to be more consistent and stronger than that of the Hope PPI. Specifically, the Gratitude PPI has generated greater increase in students’ life satisfaction and reduction in depressive symptoms than the control activities did. The Hope PPI seems to be more effective in terms of preventing the worsening of the students’ self-reported depressive symptoms, rather than directly reducing them. Concerning academic achievement, the effects of the PPIs were generally weak.
All the PPIs did not generate a significant effect on academic engagement; however, when it comes to academic motivation, results associated with one PPI was promising. In particular, the Hope PPI was found to have beneficial effects in terms of preventing the decline in students’ intrinsic motivation.
The general results of the present investigation also point to the effectiveness of the Hope PPI, but not the other two PPIs, in increasing students’ use of deep learning and elaboration strategies. The Hope PPI was found to be more effective than the usual CCE activities in enhancing the students’ use of these adaptive learning strategies. The effects of the Hope PPI on these outcomes were not significantly mediated by the students’ academic hope (i.e., positive expectations to achieve school goals). These results suggest that the Hope PPI may operate directly, rather than indirectly through enhancing academic hope levels, in improving adaptive school outcomes.
The benefits that can be derived from the PPIs appear to be stronger and more amenable to measurement when a considerable period has passed after the students’ exposure to PPIs or after booster sessions were conducted. These results suggest that some effects of the PPIs may take a while to manifest and that state-like measures may be more appropriate in capturing the effects of such PPIs accurately.
Overall, the results of the six sub-studies have shown the potential benefits of PPIs, particularly the Hope and Gratitude PPIs, in enhancing adaptive school and well-being outcomes for academically at-risk students in Singapore. The Gratitude PPI appears to have relatively stronger effects on well-being while the Hope PPI seems to be more effective in promoting the use of productive learning strategies and in preventing the decline in intrinsic motivation to study. Educators and interventionists may select the PPIs that suit the needs and profiles of their subjects, or implement the PPIs in combination and in longer duration to generate optimal impact.

2017, Caleon, Imelda S., King, Ronnel B., Liem, Gregory Arief D., Tan, Chee Soon, Tan, Jennifer Pei-Ling, Lam, Rachel Jane, Nur Qamarina Ilham

2024, King, Ronnel B., Caleon, Imelda S., Bernardo, Allan B.I.

Students’ academic learning and socio-emotional well-being are inextricably linked. This chapter introduces the importance of positive psychology and education perspectives in the Asian context. It gives an overview of how the different authors tackled the issue of well-being in their chapters. Cross-cutting themes across the different chapters are also identified.