Understanding levels of best practice: An empirical validation

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Academic Performance

Background:

• Optimal best practice emphasizes personal resolve, inner strength, and holistic development (mental, cognitive, social, physical).
• In academia, optimal functioning involves student effort, positive outlook, and determination for educational success and well-being.
• Optimization, a key inquiry, involves psychological variables to improve internal functioning, yet empirical evidence is scarce.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively assess the importance of optimal best practice in academic learning.
• To examine the influence of psychological variables (effective functioning, personal resolve, emotional functioning) on optimizing academic performance.
• To investigate the association between these psychological variables and educational outcomes (motivation, interest, academic liking).

Main Methods:

• Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze data from Taiwanese university students (N=1010).
• Participants responded to Likert-scale measures assessing optimal best practice, psychological variables, and educational outcomes.
• A quantitative approach was used to evaluate the proposed theoretical model.

Main Results:

• The study's findings fully supported the initial a priori model.
• Key psychological variables significantly predicted educational outcomes related to academic learning.
• Evidence affirmed the importance of optimal best practice in the academic context.

Conclusions:

• The research provides clarity on the psychological processes underlying optimal best practice in education.
• Findings offer practical insights for educators on how to optimize students' positive emotions and well-being.
• The study highlights the need for advanced methodological designs to further evaluate optimization impacts.