Using HeartMath Biofeedback and Social-Emotional Learning to Promote Student Empowerment
Abstract
Educational programs that incorporate social emotional learning (SEL) strategies and mindfulness practices using HeartMath sensors to provide biofeedback can help students improve emotional regulation, increase focus, and increase prosocial attitudes and behaviours. The current study is examining the efficacy of a SEL intervention (implemented into a grade nine option course) focused on social and emotional competencies and heart-focused breathing and its impact on student feelings of lowered stress, improved self-efficacy around self-management, increased focus associated with better academic performance, and improved communication and relationship skills. Integral theory, specifically Integral Methodological Pluralism, will allow the researcher to examine multiple phenomenological categories such as things, persons, people, and systems. Four quadrants of this model inform the methodology including examination of the interior individual subjective experience (phenomenology), interior collective (hermeneutics), exterior individual (empirical design), and exterior collective (systems theory). Instrumentation includes a student-opinion survey to measure social-emotional awareness, anxiety, and coping strategies. Additionally, reading comprehension tests will measure academic achievement before and after the intervention, utilizing another group with usual programming as a control group. This allows for observation and quantification of changes in student thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. Further interaction and engagement with the student(s) through interviews and focus groups will provide a construction of meaning within the transformative experience. Interviews and policy examination of school and division systems will be added to gain understanding of the curricular placement of this program. An ethics application has been approved by the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (CHREB) informing issues of consent and confidentiality.
Presentation Description
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Location
Room 109
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
McLeod, Carolyn, "Using HeartMath Biofeedback and Social-Emotional Learning to Promote Student Empowerment" (2022). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 22.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2022/2022/22
Using HeartMath Biofeedback and Social-Emotional Learning to Promote Student Empowerment
Room 109
Educational programs that incorporate social emotional learning (SEL) strategies and mindfulness practices using HeartMath sensors to provide biofeedback can help students improve emotional regulation, increase focus, and increase prosocial attitudes and behaviours. The current study is examining the efficacy of a SEL intervention (implemented into a grade nine option course) focused on social and emotional competencies and heart-focused breathing and its impact on student feelings of lowered stress, improved self-efficacy around self-management, increased focus associated with better academic performance, and improved communication and relationship skills. Integral theory, specifically Integral Methodological Pluralism, will allow the researcher to examine multiple phenomenological categories such as things, persons, people, and systems. Four quadrants of this model inform the methodology including examination of the interior individual subjective experience (phenomenology), interior collective (hermeneutics), exterior individual (empirical design), and exterior collective (systems theory). Instrumentation includes a student-opinion survey to measure social-emotional awareness, anxiety, and coping strategies. Additionally, reading comprehension tests will measure academic achievement before and after the intervention, utilizing another group with usual programming as a control group. This allows for observation and quantification of changes in student thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. Further interaction and engagement with the student(s) through interviews and focus groups will provide a construction of meaning within the transformative experience. Interviews and policy examination of school and division systems will be added to gain understanding of the curricular placement of this program. An ethics application has been approved by the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (CHREB) informing issues of consent and confidentiality.
