10/22/2024
By Zakkiyya Witherspoon

The School of Education invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Lizzie Linn “Self-Awareness and Well-Being in the Higher Education Classroom.”

Candidate: Lizzie Linn
Degree: Doctoral in Leadership in Education
Defense Date: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Location: Coburn Hall Room 275
Thesis/Dissertation Title: "Self-Awareness and Well-Being in the Higher Education Classroom”

Dissertation Committee

  • Dissertation Chair: James Nehring, Ed.D., Professor Emeritus, Leadership in Schooling, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Phitsamay S. Uy, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Leadership in Schooling, & Co-director of Center for Asian American Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Hilary Lustick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract

Self-awareness and student wellbeing are critical factors often overlooked in the higher education classroom. This study aims to elucidate the importance of incorporating self-awareness practices into the curriculum and share faculty perspectives on how their inclusion could benefit students in many ways, including holistic development and wellbeing. For nearly two decades, K-12 educators have integrated self-awareness strategies into their social and emotional learning (SEL) curricula to enhance student wellbeing (Elias et al., 1997). Although higher education recognizes the need for greater support for student wellbeing, there is currently no similar standardized curricular programming. The increasing rates of anxiety and depression among post-secondary students (Zhai & Du, 2020) highlight the need for integrative wellbeing strategies that extend beyond extracurricular programming. Additionally, there is a trend towards commodification and marketization in higher education (Harward, 2016; Dalton & Crosby, 2006) and away from holistic student development that leads to eudaimonic wellbeing – or a sense of fulfillment that comes from self-realization, virtuous living, and working towards the achievement of goals (Ryff & Singer, 2008). Integrating self-awareness into the curriculum is one way of addressing these concerns. While some professors and programs incorporate self-awareness practices into their classrooms, there is limited research in this area. Using a grounded theory approach, this study explores faculty perceptions of self-awareness, its integration into their classrooms, and its effects on students, including but not limited to their eudaimonic wellbeing. This research resulted in a working definition of self-awareness that can be used to promote these practices in the classroom: self-awareness as a reflexive sense of who one is in relation to others, one’s cognitive and affective behaviors, one’s values and goals and capacity to act authentically in relation to them, and the self as a non-self that lacks an unchanging permanence and singularity, thus suggesting an inherent interdependence. The research culminates in a new theory or system of practices that articulates effective methods for integrating self-awareness into higher education classrooms. This theory provides valuable insights for faculty on how to carry out implicit and/or explicit self-awareness activities, depending upon levels of training and expertise.