Knowledge Resource Bank

Youth Purpose

Shift focus beyond academic excellence and prioritise what truly matters in youths’ learning, school and overall life experience.

Youth Purpose at the Heart of Student Well-Being

  How Findings from Youth Purpose Research Can Help Students? 

  • To transform and reimagine schools with a new educative purpose post-pandemic, it is vital that schools move beyond academic performance outcomes to finding purpose.

 

“The biggest problem growing up today is not actually stress, it’s meaninglessness.          

– Professor William Damon, Director of the Stanford Centre on Adolescence, Stanford University

 

YP Slide1_Purpose-driven Vision of schooling

 

Why is Youth Purpose at the Heart of Student Well-Being?

 

YP Slide2_Theory of Youth Purpose

 

Purpose is defined as a long-lasting intention to accomplish something that is meaningful not only to self but to the world beyond self (Damon, 2008). All young people are capable of discovering life purposes, and purpose is positively related to life satisfaction or well-being. 

 

Educational change scholars in recent years have called for a focus on students as partners in change and leadership (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009). This involves a deeper look into the complexity of students’ learning and lives in the design of meaningful educational experiences. Worldwide, the predominant focus is on academic excellence in schools.

 

YP Slide 3_What can schools do?

How Was the Research Carried Out?

 

The Youth Purpose research used a quantitative and qualitative research design with questionnaires, focus group discussions and clinical interviews. About 600 Singapore and 200 Israeli 15-year-old adolescents completed four questionnaires:

  • Life Goals Questionnaire (Roberts & Robins, 2000)
  • Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger et al., 2006)
  • Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki & Demaray, 2002)
  • Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985)

 

Twenty-eight Singapore students were interviewed individually; ten students were interviewed individually a second time one year later to examine stability of responses and obtain further elaboration.

 


Evidence from Youth Purpose Research

 

Project focus

What project uncovered

 

    • What really matters in high-performance schooling in Singapore?

 

    • Upstream focus on a more purpose-driven, human-centred experience of schooling gets to the root of many downstream mental well-being and mental health issues.

 

    • Raise critical questions of purpose and meaning through examining the human aspects of students’ experiences of schooling.

 

    • Novel cross-national research between Singapore and Israel.

 

      • Both are small nations with common traits of self-reliance and determination to thrive under prevailing local, regional, and global tensions.
      • Both value education highly.

 

 

    • The tensions and paradoxes in Singapore schooling

 

    • Students’ actual engagement and motivations with school learning (or lack of) impacted students’ learning and well-being

 

    • What matter in students’ learning, school and life experiences?

 

      • Do students in Singapore schools have meaningful purposes to commit themselves to?
      • What is the nature of adolescent purposes that might inspire students?
      • How have students developed such purposes and meanings?
      • What are the comparative levels of youth purpose, meaning in life, social support and life satisfaction among adolescents in Singapore and Israel?

 

 

    • Highlight the fundamental questions of “why” and “what for” so that schools can lead the future of education and guide students to make purposeful and ethical decisions for themselves and the larger community.

 

 

    • It is important to stimulate discussion about what schools and teachers can do to guide students with finding and creating purpose and meaning in learning, school and life.

 

    • Failure to address the “why” of schooling and learning may lead to a sense of meaninglessness and a lack of purpose among students.

 

    • High achievement without purpose is not sustainable in the long term – students “do” school and can be high achieving but have low purpose that stunts personal growth and well-being.

 

 

1. Purpose and meaning in life

  • Youth’s purpose, meaning in life and social support systems significantly influence students’ school and life satisfaction.

 

  • Purposeful adolescents: 
    • Have self-goals and often a beyond-the-self purpose orientation.
    • Students with self- and other-focused purpose orientation as compared to those with no-orientation perceived significantly higher support from parents, teachers, and people in school.

 

2. Social support, satisfaction with school and life or well-being

  • Discovering and developing youth purpose needs to be supported, otherwise it is ad-hoc and left to chance.

 

  • Support from parents was the strongest predictor of school and life satisfaction
    • Adolescents typically turn to parents and teachers for bigger life issues, and to close friends for school issues.

 

3. Comparative findings between Singapore and Israel

  • While Israel seeks to improve its educational achievement metrics, it is notable that its students, unlike those in Singapore, have a greater sense of purpose, presence of meaning and significantly higher school and life satisfaction.

 


 What Does This Mean for Youth Purpose in Schools?

Youth purpose can serve as a moral compass for life. 

A purpose-focused education with a connected and future-oriented curriculum may engender greater purpose in schooling as students find greater meaning, significance and value in their learning.

 

 What Should Teachers Do?

YP Slide4_Teach with and for Purpose

 

 

YP Slide5_Purpose as a long term goal

 

 Some Examples for Teaching and Teacher Professional Development

YP_Slide 6_Examples for teaching

 

 

YP Slide7_Examples for teacher PD

 


Question-Icon  Related Links


Question-Icon  Further Readings

For educators interested in finding out more about the Youth Purpose research and related references, you may refer to:

 

Other references:


Question-Icon  Research Projects

The following projects are associated with Youth Purpose Research:


Question-Icon Research Team

To learn more about this research, please contact Associate Professor Mary Anne Heng at maryanne.heng@nie.edu.sg

Principal Investigator

A/P Mary Anne Heng, Policy, Curriculum and Leadership (PCL), NIE


Co-Principal Investigators

A/P Jiang Heng, PCL, NIE

Dr Tan Chee Soon, Psychology and Child & Human Development (PCHD), NIE

 

Collaborators

Prof Ina Blau, The Open University of Israel

Dr Gavin William Fulmer, University of Iowa (formerly of NIE)

Dr Tan Liang See (formerly of NIE)

 

Research Associates

Dr Andrew Pereira, Office of Educational Research (OER), NIE

Dr Bi Xiaofang, Institute for Adult Learning, Singapore University for Social Sciences (formerly of NIE)



Acknowledgements

Youth Purpose Research was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (project no. OER 10/13 MAH & RS 7/16 MAH). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Singapore MOE and NIE.

Some of the examples for teaching and teacher professional development were developed together with the inspiring teachers and education leaders who attended A/P Mary Anne Heng’s class in the Joint NIE, NTU and Teachers College, Columbia University Master of Arts in Leadership and Educational Change programme in 2021.

This knowledge resource was written by A/P Mary Anne Heng, Dr Tan Chee Soon, Dr Lynn Chiam, Ms Monica Lim and Mr Jared Martens Wong on 21 December 2021.

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