Cultivating Early Adults’ Flourishing with Mindfulness & Technology Assisted Skill Transfer: A Pilot Comparative Effectiveness
Open Access
- Author:
- DeCollibus, Marisa
- Graduate Program:
- School Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 10, 2024
- Committee Members:
- James Diperna, Program Head/Chair
Robert Roeser, Outside Unit Member
Cristin Hall, Major Field Member
Jennifer Frank, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Deb Schussler, Outside Field Member
Damon Evan Jones, Special Member - Keywords:
- Emerging Adulthood
Skill Transfer
Mindfulness
Transition to College
Personal Health Tracker
Well-being
Flourishing - Abstract:
- The current study seeks to support early adults in maintaining mindfulness practices to ease discomfort during their transition to college. Early adulthood is well-matched for introducing mindfulness practice, and summer bridge programs are a logical place to introduce these skills. Mindfulness programs for college students have shown promising results but only impact students’ well-being when skills are regularly practiced. We propose a way to help motivate early adults to practice mindfulness using personal health trackers that allow students to track their stress over periods of time and receive stress-based biofeedback. This study seeks to understand if personal health trackers help early adults apply mindfulness skills beyond intervention contexts and, more broadly, how personal health trackers may be used for skill generalization across interventions. Using a comparative effectiveness trial, two groups (n = 18) of emerging adults entering a large land grant university participated in a mindfulness program called Just BREATHE during their transition to college. One of the groups had access to features of a personal health tracker. Pre, post, and follow-up surveys were delivered to measure primary and secondary outcomes and a Daily Diary probe was used to monitor instances of mindfulness practice and stress level. HRV was passively collected as an indicator of physiological stress using personal health trackers. Most primary and secondary outcomes were measured using OLS regression, and patterns of effect sizes. Multi-level Modeling was used to assess stress level collected from the Daily Diary and HRV data. Additionally, independent t-tests were run to detect differences between conditions in mindfulness practice and motivation to practice. For all outcomes, no significant differences between conditions were detected. Multilevel modeling showed that across both conditions, self-rated stress significantly decreased at follow-up.