The Effectiveness of a Short-term Mindfulness-Based Program for Children on the Attention of First-grade Students

• Main Authors: Tai,Yi-Fen, 戴臆芬
• Other Authors: Huang,Feng-Ying
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/dx3uek

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 教育學系生命教育碩士班 === 105 === This research aims to discuss the effectiveness of short-term Mindfulness-Based Programs for Children on the attention of first-grade students in elementary school. Quasi-experimental designs and qualitative interviews were used in this research. With regard to the quantitative analysis, the neuropsychological attention network test for children, questionnaires for parents, and questionnaires for teachers were used as testing tools. For the qualitative analysis, the teachers who delivered the mindfulness course and the students in the experimental group were interviewed after the ten-week course to investigate the impact of the mindfulness course on the students’ attention. The results were used as reference indices for the effectiveness of the mindfulness course for children. Furthermore, school teachers were interviewed to examine their relevant experiences with regard to delivering mindfulness and its feasibility. The research participants included 51 first-grade students in two classes in one Taipei elementary school. One class was the experimental group, which was taught by a teacher who had received mindfulness teaching training. The mindfulness course for children was delivered once a week, 40 minutes per session, during a total of 10 weeks. The other group was the control group, which received lessons with picture books while the experimental group was receiving the mindfulness course, as a reference. The research results were as follows: The data of the two sample groups from the “alerting network” and the “executive control network” categories in the Attention Network Test for Children were tested using one-way ANCOVA. No significant differences were found between the experimental group and the control group in the results. The data of the two sample groups from the “orienting network” category were tested using one-way ANCOVA in terms of homogeneity, and the variances across samples were found to not be equal. Then, the data from the two sample groups were analyzed using the Johnson-Neyman procedure, and no significant differences were found between the experimental group and the control group in the results. Using one-way ANCOVA analysis, we found significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the results from both the questionnaires for parents and the questionnaires for teachers. The interviews of teachers revealed increased promotion in the degree of attention and the ability to perceive emotions of the students in the experimental group. The interviews of students in the experimental group revealed that students could perceive themselves to be more focused when in class and doing homework. They could also help themselves by using methods that they learned in the mindfulness course. The interviews of school teachers revealed that the earlier the mindfulness course was delivered in elementary schools, the better.