Learning for Well-Being: PERMA Outcomes and University Students’ Reflections from Positive Psychology Learning in Thailand’s Southern Border Context
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Abstract
University students’ well-being is important for learning, emotional adjustment, and psychological growth, particularly in culturally diverse higher education contexts. This study aimed to 1) compare students’ PERMA-based well-being before and after positive psychology learning, and 2) explore students’ learning experiences and perceived psychological changes reflected after the course. This classroom-based pilot study employed a one-group pretest–posttest design together with qualitative reflective data. The participants were 25 undergraduate students from a university in Thailand’s southern border region. Quantitative data were collected using a PERMA-based well-being scale and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and rank-biserial correlation as the effect size. Qualitative reflective data were analyzed through a combination of thematic analysis and qualitative content analysis.
The findings showed that overall PERMA-based well-being increased significantly after positive psychology learning (W = 253.50, p = .003, rrb = .69). When the PERMA domains were examined in an exploratory manner with Holm-Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons, relationships remained statistically significant, whereas Positive Emotion was significant only before p-value adjustment. The reflective data revealed three main themes: seeing the self with kindness and realism, reframing mistakes as opportunities for growth, and gaining positive learning experiences that supported connection with others. In addition, some students connected self-acceptance with faith-informed ways of thinking. This study provides preliminary evidence that positive psychology learning may serve as one possible approach to supporting student well-being in a multicultural university context in Thailand’s southern border region. These insights can be applied to design learning activities that integrate psychological dimensions with religious beliefs, fostering an environment conducive to psychological growth, relationship building, and sustainable coexistence amidst cultural diversity.
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