The road to greater well-being: exploring the impact of an undergraduate positive education course on university students’ well-being

The profile of subjective well-being (SWB) in university students is perturbing in many respects. Indeed, university students are in need of tools to combat stress and promote SWB now more than ever given the adverse repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Positive education could serve as a SWB tool to help university students deal with academic, personal, and global stressors. While a number of studies have quantitatively reported the impact of positive education on student SWB, few have considered students’ experiences and perceptions of changes in their SWB as a result of taking a positive education course. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore university students’ experiences in a positive education course and their perceptions of its influence on their SWB immediately after taking the course. Undergraduate students (n = 17) who had taken a positive education course during the Winter term of 2020 (January–April) were recruited via volunteer sampling. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Analyses revealed that the course improved the students’ SWB, self-compassion, mindfulness, and optimism. Mechanisms such as greater self-reflection, implementation of intentional positive activities, and big picture thinking underlie these reported improvements. Our findings support positive education’s effectiveness in enhancing student SWB and expand on the current literature by proposing novel mechanisms linking positive education to enhanced student SWB, self-compassion, mindfulness, and optimism.