Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Recent research shows that the number of mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and suicidality is increasing among U.S. college students (Liu et al., 2018). To mitigate the situation, happiness-related courses are beginning to receive attention in higher education (Shimer, 2018). The courses of “Psychology and Good Life” at Yale University, “Designing Your Life” at Stanford University, and “Positive Psychology” at Harvard University are just some examples. However, happiness is still a less-explored topic in higher education for several reasons. First, higher education often focuses its curricula on pragmatic knowledge and skills more than the cultivation of students’ human spirit (Muscatine, 2009). Second, many professional fields require students to follow a set of rubrics or a protocol to do the work instead of incorporating creativity, wisdom, and a profound love for humanity (Henriksen et al., 2016). Third, today’s global society often mistakenly equates happiness with affluence (Kim, 2018). For some people, they believe that self-fulfillment can only be actualized if their basic needs are met (e. g., Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Therefore, research is needed on how higher education plays a role in helping college students look for the meaning in their lives and how to live their future.
What Is Absolute Happiness?
Ikeda (2015) categorizes happiness into two types: (a) relative happiness and (b) absolute happiness. Relative happiness relies on factors that are outside oneself, such as fame, wealth, and other materialistic desires. In contrast, absolute happiness comes from something within oneself, also called the unsurpassed and indestructible life state (Ikeda, 2015–). While relative happiness is important at times, a genuine happiness—absolute happiness—lies in building a solid inner self and not being defeated by trials or suffering. Absolute happiness is rooted in Soka education and human revolution. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944), Japanese revolutionary educator and founder of Soka Education, argues that the purpose of education is to teach students how to become happy. His disciple, Jose Toda (1900–1958) continued expanding Makiguchi’s philosophy of education and developed a methodology called “Human Revolution,” which became the foundation of Soka Education to uncover students’ potential and promote peace in the world. Daisaku Ikeda (1928-), a disciple of both Makiguchi’s and Toda’s, has actualized his mentors’ dreams and spread this humanistic approach to over 192 countries.
Ikeda (2015) argues that to achieve a life state of absolute happiness, a person needs to develop six life conditions: (a) fulfillment, (b) a profound philosophy, (c) conviction, (d) cheer and vibrancy, (e) courage, and (f) tolerance. He believes that the mission of a university is to serve society, including those who cannot receive a higher education. When college students start to develop a mind-set of living each day with a sense of joy and purpose, it is more likely that they will be responsible for their roles in their professional fields and in their communities (Ikeda, 2015). In other words, having a profound philosophy of life enables students to face the harsh realities of life with conviction and hope. Thus, it is beneficial for college students to understand the concept of absolute happiness.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model
The term “experiential learning” is generally believed to originate from Dewey (Weinstein, 2019). Dewey emphasizes learning by doing and argues that classroom lectures are not always the best way to help students learn knowledge in depth. Experiential learning is defined as “a teaching philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people’s capacity to contribute to their communities” (Association for Experiential Education, 2020). There are five common teaching approaches to promote experiential learning: (a) active learning, (b) problem-based and inquiry-based learning, (c) project-based learning, (d) service learning, and (e) place-based learning. Although each approach adopts different ways to carry out activities, they share features like hands-on activities, cooperative learning, real-life issues, dialogue, inquiries, and/or interactions with others (Wurdinger & Carlson, 2009).
The core ideas of experiential learning theory have been widely adopted in higher education for nearly half a century (A. Y. Kolb & Kolb, 2017b). Among the experiential learning models, D. A. Kolb’s (2015) model is broadly adopted by experiential educators across disciplines. There are four essential components in Kolb’s model: concrete experiences, reflective observations, formation of the concept, and active experimentation. Kolb explains that the experiential learning model begins with concrete experiential learning activities around a concept. Through observing and reflecting on these activities, students begin to develop a better understanding of the concept. When students become confident in their capacity to make a connection with things around the concept in the real world, they will be more willing to go beyond class experiential activities and actively explore, question, and expand their understanding of the concept in a variety of life situations. In short, concrete experiences and reflective observations are means to help students understand and form the concept of what they are learning, and lead them to continue testing issues around that concept in real-life situations.
D. A. Kolb’s (2015) argues that experiential learning is not a linear model. Rather, it is cyclical and recursive. In other words, simply participating in a set of prearranged activities does not count as experiential learning. The purpose of experiential learning is not just doing activities but reflecting on how doing these activities can inform one’s learning. That is, learning happens through reflecting on doing (Felicia, 2011). Chapman et al. (1995) state, “It is a series of working principles, all of which are equally important or must be present to varying degrees at some time during experiential learning” (p. 243). The major principles include:
Balancing the experiential activities and the underlying content.
Creating a safe space for students’ self-discovery, emotional investment, and engagement.
Engaging students in personally relevant and purposeful endeavors.
Enhancing the meaningful learning relationships of learners themselves and others.
Exploring, connecting, analyzing, reflecting, and re-examining values.
Learning outside one’s physical and social comfort zone and taking ownership.
Experiential learning activities encourage learners to be self-teachers in the process of exploration (D. A. Kolb, 2015). To make students’ learning more efficient, instructors can apply scaffolding strategies and build mutually clear expectations. They should avoid any excessive judgment that hinders students’ success.
To fill the gap in the existing literature on happiness studies and to enact experiential education on happiness in higher education, we conducted a study to analyze a happiness course in higher education that was developed based on D. A. Kolb’s (2015) experiential learning model. The research questions that guided our study are:
What concrete experiences does this course use to help college students understand absolute happiness?
What do reflective observations say about students’ understanding of absolute happiness after the concrete experiences?
What evidence indicates the formation of the concept of absolute happiness?
How do students engage in active experimentation after the concrete experiences?
Method
Class Context
We examined a happiness course that involved 20 75-minute class sessions with 40 college students (10 sessions for 20 students in each semester), taught by one of the authors of this study. The course was developed based on the four essential components of D. A. Kolb’s (2015) experiential learning model: concrete experiences, reflective observations, formation of the concept, and active experimentation. The objective of this course was to help students understand the concept of absolute happiness. The activities took place in the classroom, at the university’s cancer center, in a historical building, at a nature park, and via online conferencing. Figure 1 shows an overview of the course design based on Kolb’s model.
An overview of the course design based on Kolb’s model.
To ensure that the experiences would maximize students’ learning, the instructor set criteria for selecting the activities: (a) convenient transportation, (b) a limited number of off-campus experiential activities, and (c) no extra cost to students. Convenient transportation was important because some of her students had courses back to back and needed to be able to travel from one class to the other class quickly. As a result, most of the experiential activities were arranged on campus. For example, one of the experiential learning activities was arranged at the cancer center located on a different campus (but still within the university). Students could either drive or take a campus shuttle to the location, which meant it took roughly 10 minutes to transition. When activities were conducted outside the students’ regular classroom, the instructor expected that some students might be running late, which she made clear would not count against their final grades.
Limiting the number of off-campus activities was important because not all of the instructor’s students had cars and thus some of them needed to carpool. The instructor limited off-campus experiential learning to only one activity—the nature park—which was 20 minutes away from the campus by car. The instructor had helped students arrange carpools at the beginning of the semester and she also arranged for her university information technology (IT) staff to film the entire field trip and uploaded a high-quality video to their course platform for those who missed the activity. In spite of these efforts, several students in the first semester expressed that they had to rush to the nature park right after their previous courses. Considering students’ safety, in the second semester, the instructor collaborated with staff at a nature park (i.e., park interpreters) to develop a different lesson. Instead of having a field trip to the nature park, the interpreters brought snakes, lizards, turtles, baby crocodiles, and insects to the campus. Students were able to engage with the animals and hands-on activities in the traditional classroom.
The third criterion was set so that students would not feel any extra financial burdens. The cost of the field trip to the nature park, which was $2 per person, was covered through a small internal grant. Whenever funding was not available, the instructor flexibly adjusted the activities to eliminate the cost, such as using online conferencing instead or face-to-face interactions, or by establishing a strong community partnership with people who were willing to give their services for the betterment of society at no cost. For example, in the second semester, the cost of the park interpreters coming to the campus with their animals was covered through government funding of a community outreach program.
Data Collection
The course materials (e.g., the syllabus), teaching logs, students’ weekly reflective observations, and final projects were collected for this study. The course materials were original and developed by the instructor of the course. Regarding weekly reflective observations, students could choose to do experience-specific reflections or theme-specific reflections. The instructor defined experience-specific reflections as students’ reflections that were closely tied to the specific activities they did in class. For example, after practicing Taichi, students reflected on how Taichi was related to their health and happiness. In contrast, theme-specific reflections referred to the students’ reflective observations surrounding the same topics not limited to the specific activities which they did in class. For instance, students reflect on how exercise in general was related to their health and happiness without focusing their reflections only on Taichi. Both the experience-specific reflections and the theme-specific reflections provided students equally meaningful ways to reflect on the activities they did. At the end of the course, students were required to conduct final projects in small groups as active experimentation to deepen their understanding of absolute happiness, and they were required to share their learning experiences with other first- and second-year college students, faculty, and administrators at the exposition.
Data Analysis
Content analysis (Elo et al., 2014; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) was adopted in this study to analyze the course design. We group the data into four categories: concrete experiences, reflective observations, formation of the concept, and active experimentation. We included students’ weekly reflective observations and class discussions to show their personal unique perspectives toward the experiential learning activities on absolute happiness, rather than qualifying or quantifying their responses to generate common knowledge. The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Augusta University (#1596751-1).
Findings
We organized the findings into four sections: (a) concrete experiences, (b) reflective observations, (c) formation of absolute happiness, and (d) active experimentation. The concrete experiences in this happiness course involved field trips, hands-on activities, dialogue, inquiries, and shared reading. These activities were associated with good relationships, art and the human spirit, a healthy life, peaceful coexistence with nature, as well as harsh realities and optimism. Evidence from reflective observations demonstrates students’ understanding and formation of the concept of absolute happiness. The final projects as active experimentation deepened students’ understanding of absolute happiness.
Concrete Experiences
The concrete experiences in this happiness course created opportunities for students to observe, interact, and reflect on what they were doing. These activities allowed students to participate in and interact with their immediate environment inside and outside the classroom. An overview of the course schedule, including weekly activities, discussion questions, and the focus of the six life conditions for absolute happiness, is shown in Table 1.
An Overview of the Course Schedule.
Reflective Observations
In students’ weekly reflective observations, they shared what they did during that week and how the activity was connected to absolute happiness. Each student described their unique perspectives toward the activities on absolute happiness. In addition, the instructor kept teaching logs to record class discussions on the activities.
Maintaining a good relationship
On Week 1, students discussed how they dealt with difficult relationships in the past and at present. Each student brought up different tips to help himself/herself and others maintain good relationships especially with those whom they found difficult to agree with. A student shared that “working with someone whom I do not agree with is frustrating. However, there are many things that I do to power through the frustrating time and eventually get along with it.” The strategies students discussed included being respectful and positive, asking themselves if it is worth an argument, finding common ground to compromise, realizing that people cannot agree on every single thing, and reinforcing positive feelings toward each other despite differences. The small group dialogues in class allowed students to share their personal challenges about relationships and learned how they could overcome the challenges through courage and tolerance.
Art and the human spirit
On Week 2, students went to their university’s cancer center to view a cancer survivor’s artwork. There was a Q&A session with the artist after the visit. Through dialogue, the students learned how art could cultivate the human spirit. A student said: Having a terminal illness, being in a hospital, and having constant medication and treatment can take a huge toll on a person. The way the person decided to manage was by his art. He had multiple different drawings and they were full of symbolism to explain every part of his journey. The process of drawing helped to calm his nerves and to take his mind off of things for a bit. His artwork is inspiring to anyone who may be involved in their own personal battles, and can give them hope to push through and to continue to see the light at the end of a deep, dark tunnel. The person did an excellent job of creating a space for people to see his journey and to know that there is something good in every situation.
The guest speaker shared with the students that art encompasses a wide variety of forms, such as songs, poems, stories, websites, blogs, dance, drawing, filming, jokes, music, nature, painting, photography, sculpting, and many others. He and the students discussed several benefits of art such as allowing personal feelings to come out without words, bringing love and joy, creating a healthy state of mind, inspiring life by igniting positive feelings, regulating blood pressure, and reducing stress levels. Many students shared that they had never visited the cancer center located in their own university, and they did not know that the artwork exhibited in the center was actually from the talented patients at the center. The trip helped students see how other people strived to fulfill their lives with cheer and vibrancy even when they were facing difficult moments in life.
A healthy life
On Week 3 and Week 5, the experiential learning activities were both about health—making different types of juice in class and practicing Taichi and Qigong at the university tower while enjoying the city view. One student shared: being healthy and being happy go hand in hand. In this class, we made juice and put different ingredients in it. All of these ingredients contributed to the juice as a whole . . . happiness starts with what we put into our body.
The student indicated that health and happiness were intertwined and they affect each other. Another student also said: Our class proved that doing Taichi was more difficult than we had thought. The Taichi moves show us how the Chinese live a much more grounded and healthier life than we do. Their core has little weakness and they are precise about each step and swing of the arm they make . . . Our instructor described to us the type of things we should be thinking and feeling and how we should act on a day to day basis to maintain a solid level of Chi.
After the experiential learning activities on a healthy life, students discussed ideas in class about having healthy lifestyles, including acting on positive emotions and letting go the negative ones, eating the right kinds of food, going to a doctor for help or regular checkups, knowing the interconnections between mental and physical health, quitting smoking, sleeping and resting well, staying active, and exercising regularly. These experiential learning activities helped students apprehend the subtle connections between health and happiness. An additional advantage of the activities was to help students develop a profound philosophy of life and make better decisions to protect their health and create more happy moments in life.
Peaceful coexistence with nature
On Week 4, students interacted with animals and nature. Two certified nature park interpreters led the activities to help students understand the history of the park, the ecosystem and conservation of the park, as well as indoor and outdoor activities people could enjoy at the park. Students were able to touch animals like snakes, baby crocodiles, rescued turtles, and various insects. A student shared: I love that we travelled to a nature park to see wildlife and really connect with the outside world with all of its inhabitants. We learned about different types of animals and what they need, but also what they do not need . . . It is important, as humans that we respect the boundaries and the safety of the natural world around us, just as they do for us. The world is about balance and about coexisting with the living world around us, instead of doing it harm and making it about ourselves. Doing good things and helping other things prosper will help us bring out happiness.
After the experience, students discussed how human beings could create a peaceful coexistence with nature, such as by building a bird house or a flower garden, conserving water, refraining from littering, exploring nature to see the beauty of the earth, recycling, reducing the use of plastic materials, and rescuing animals. The activities helped students experience oneness of self and the environment and cultivate a tolerance for the diverse lives on Earth.
Harsh realities and optimism
On Weeks 7 and 8, the experiential activities were explicitly related to Ikeda’s philosophy about happiness. On Week 7, Dr. Jason Goulah, Director of the Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education at DePaul University, was invited to talk with students about the pedagogy of life and death from Ikeda’s perspectives. One student shared in class that her father passed away recently and she was very saddened. The guest speaker used his personal experience and Ikeda’s perspectives to encourage the student. Every student in the class experienced the deaths of their family members and/or close friends. The Q&A section with the guest speaker was very fruitful to the students. On Week 8, students discussed the book—Hope is a Decision (Ikeda, 2017). The shared reading activity aimed to create interactive and cooperative learning opportunities. The class was divided into five groups for students to converse about the book and relate their readings to personal experiences. One student said: I enjoyed the chapter, Winter Never Lasts, the most because I believe winter represents hardship. As Ikeda states, “In times of trial, one must learn to endure whatever may come and thereby strengthen and improve oneself.” I am never going to learn about myself if I do not experience struggles and exert myself to overcome them.
Students discussed their ways of facing the harsh realities in life, including being honest and admitting mistakes, being grateful for positive things, keeping faith and never giving up, knowing that each person has unlimited potential, reading books and inspiring stories, and seeking help from close friends, family, or professionals. The shared reading activity allowed students to share their personal experiences with peers. The experiences encouraged one another to have unshakable conviction in the face of obstacles and advance toward fulfilling their unique missions in life.
Formation of Concept of Absolute Happiness
Evidence from students’ weekly reflective observations and class discussions shows that the students gradually formed the concept of absolute happiness after the concrete experiences. The first life condition for absolute happiness is fulfillment. This condition refers to a person who is filled each day with a rewarding sense of exhilaration and purpose, a sense of tasks accomplished, and deep fulfillment (Ikeda, 2015). A student shared: Being who you are impacts everyone. It affects your friends, family, and society. While reading Daisaku Ikeda’s book, Hope is a Decision, he mentions, ‘each individual has immense potential, and a great change in the inner dimension of one individual’s life has the power to touch others’ lives and transform society. Everything begins with us’ (p. 3). . .I use my generosity to illuminate the world around me. I believe if I am nice to everyone, everyone will be nice to each other.
Multiple data sources reveal that students seemed to grasp the significance of being who they are, doing their very best, and creating life value by helping others. A variety of activities such as shared reading, field trips, dialogues, and inquiries were able to create cooperative learning for students to understand the concept of fulfillment for absolute happiness.
The second life condition is to possess a profound philosophy. This condition refers to individuals who strive to do their best at work and in all responsibilities and to win in all areas of life while using their spare time to work for people’s happiness and the welfare of society (Ikeda, 2015). A student talked about her feeling after making the juice with her classmates: A healthy life is all about balance. For instance, making juice is about the balance of flavors but it is also about the balance of what the ingredients do for a healthy lifestyle. Certain juices are made for diabetes, good skin, or faster metabolism; if I don’t find the right balance between each ingredient, I will not end up with a good tasting juice or a healthy balance. Just like in life, we need to find a healthy balance between everything we go through; it is normal to have strife and pain but we need to find something that evens out the weight of the negatives with positives. Once we find that equilibrium, we will truly have a healthy lifestyle.
The student unpacked the complexities of life in terms of creating a balance among all the things people have to handle on a daily basis. Through the experiences, students not only sought to learn about making juice but were restorative in their approach to make sense of how balance played an important role in the pursuit of a happy life. The activity helped students understand that while each element has its own functions and merits, a great flavor comes out from a creative and harmonious mix of the right elements. The experiences could help students develop their philosophy of life.
The third life condition is conviction. This condition refers to a person who possesses unwavering conviction and sees the value and potential of his or her own life (Ikeda, 2015). One student shared his thought in class after the interaction with the guest speaker who gave a talk on the pedagogy of life and death: There are many challenges we must face in life. Although these challenges are not always easy to overcome, we can confront them with hope and conviction. Through conviction we question ourselves and see what best efforts to put in. Through hope we can think of the best possible outcomes and what we can still gain from the situation.
Absolute happiness exists when people have conviction and are willing to continue creating life value no matter what. In class discussions, students encouraged each other that shunning away from trouble does not solve problems. Having conviction helped them recognize the best efforts that they could make in tough situations, and having hope encourages them to always look at the bright side of the situation.
The fourth life condition is cheer and vibrancy. This condition refers to a person who lives cheerfully and vibrantly and has the wisdom and perception to move things in a positive direction (Ikeda, 2015). One student with a disability shared how he lived his life cheerfully and vibrantly. He wanted to use his story to encourage others who were suffering. He said: Everyone has something that makes them unique. For me, one thing that makes me unique is my stutter. This “disability” or “disorder” is what makes me different from everyone around me. My uniqueness illuminates the world around me by me using my stutter to show people just who I am. I don’t let my stutter stop me from speaking up and being involved. I show people the patience and kindness I have learned over the years from seeing the opposite given to me, as I was bullied and rushed to grow up. I don’t want others to feel the same way I did back then.
In class, students shared their personal stories with each other. They moved their reflection into action to make sense of what absolute happiness truly meant to them. They used their personal stories to show that each individual is capable of leading his or her life cheerfully and vibrantly despite social barriers and physical disadvantages.
The fifth life condition is courage. This condition refers to a person who boldly faces challenges and wins with a strong life force (Ikeda, 2015). After visiting the artwork exhibited in the hallway of the university’s cancer center and having dialogue with a cancer survivor and his family, one student stated: There are situations in the world where they seem like no happiness could be present. For example, a critical case of cancer. For someone with cancer, life seems to be the worst of the worst. However, happiness is never not an option. Finding happiness through the art surrounding us is a great way of focusing on the good in the world. Art has been an outlet of pain and depression and in the end, result becomes something undeniably beautiful.
Evidence from reflective observations and class discussions shows that visiting the cancer center touched the students’ heart and helped them see the power of art. Even in the most difficult situation, a life-threatening illness being only one example, a person with courage could still find ways to move on. In this experiential learning activity, art helped the cancer survivor express his pain and hope, which allowed students to make connections to the real world and develop courage to fight against their own hardships in life.
The final condition for absolute happiness is tolerance. This condition refers to a person who is tolerant and has a warm approachability that makes people feel relaxed and comfortable (Ikeda, 2015). Interacting with the park interpreters and touching animals cultivated students’ compassion for living creatures and raised their awareness of peacefully coexisting with the environment and people with diverse backgrounds. A student said: The nature around us was breathtaking. It was calming and peaceful to enjoy nature around us. I managed to take a video of a beautiful butterfly fluttering around. This experience in the park allowed me to understand how important nature and the environment are to all lives.
The interaction with nature helped students recognize that helping others prosper would help draw happiness out of themselves. Being tolerant is all about respecting people and the living environment and knowing that even if people are different, they can live peacefully and learn from each other.
Active Experimentation
The final projects as active experimentation aimed to deepen students’ understanding of absolute happiness. The instructor brainstormed ideas with the students in the middle of the semester to learn about what projects they would enjoy doing and would deepen their understanding of absolute happiness. In the first semester, students wanted to divide the class into six groups and each group decided their own topics on absolute happiness.
The first group provided an overview of how experiential learning activities in this happiness course helped them understand the concept of absolute happiness. They took a systematic approach to share with audiences inside and outside their class about their overall learning experiences. They displayed confidence in achieving absolute happiness and described how experiential learning activities could help people raise their life condition.
The second group chose to explore how good relationships could help people become happier. They categorized relationships into different types: family relationships, friendships, acquaintanceships, and romantic relationships. They discussed general strategies to enhance relationships across types. They also shared specific strategies that were particularly helpful to each different type of relationships. Their analyses of the strategies resulted in several subthemes under relationships and their active experimentation was a call to action for developing genuine and healthy relationships in daily life whether it was at home, in school, or at work.
The third group addressed how healthy lifestyles could contribute to people’s happiness. They argued that health comes in three main forms: physical, emotional, and mental. To lead a happy life, these three types of health must work together properly. Like other groups, they reviewed literature and cited research findings to support their arguments. They were able to not only identify barriers to healthy lives but worked toward identifying ways that people could take action to dismantle these barriers and become healthier and happier.
The fourth group focused on how shared reading could help people become happier. Each of the students shared their favorite books with the audiences at the exposition and how the books affected their lives. They shared that engaging in reading books helped them understand life issues, develop positive attitudes, and find ways to overcome challenges in life. They read books besides textbooks to develop wisdom and to build humanizing relationships with their surroundings. These students created opportunities for the audiences at the exposition to exchange their reflections on their own favorite books and how those books helped them become happy. When shared reading centered youths’ voice in the development of a profound love for humanity, the activities seemed to inspire students to disrupt the power dynamics of what and whose knowledge counted in their professional fields, according to their dialogues.
The fifth group explored how art could help people become happy. They had everyone contribute by putting their handprints on the tri-fold poster and in this way shared the power of art together. Citing abundant research findings, the students suggested that K-20 educators should value art on campus and create an enriched and positive learning environment for students. It was essential for these young people to speak up and help adults understand their world. Art embedded in the students’ learning environment lifted up their human spirit, helped them express their inner world, and led them to happier lives.
The final group focused on the peaceful coexistence with the environment. They brought their own pets and plants to the presentation at the exposition to raise people’s awareness that animals and plants were often the first group impacted by a polluted environment. The students in this group developed compassion for creatures in their surroundings, which could positively impact their own happiness and that of others. Being animal and plant welfare advocates, they hoped to shape the audiences’ thoughts and behaviors and lead them to work out their own ways for creating a peaceful coexistent environment.
In the second semester, students suggested doing shared reading for their final projects. They formed small groups to discuss impactful books in their lives and connected the books to (a) absolute happiness, (b) the experiential learning activities they did in class, and (c) human commonalities. The books students chose included: 1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently, Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice, Dumplin, How Happiness Happens, How To Love Yourself, Stoicism: The Art of Happiness, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, as well as Words, Whiskey, and a Shovel. Due to COVID-19, the face-to-face exposition had been canceled. Students used Google Slides to create online posters to replace the tri-fold posters. In this way, they could still share their learning experiences with their peers virtually.
Implications
Converging evidence across intrapersonal (e.g., weekly reflective observations), interpersonal (e.g., dialogue, cooperative learning), and intergroup (e.g., final projects) domains, our study suggests the possibility of using Ikeda’s six life conditions for absolute happiness and Kolb’s experiential learning model to help college students develop skills and strategies for understanding absolute happiness.
Intrapersonal domains include activities like reflective observations to raise students’ awareness of personal thoughts, feelings, intentions, and soundings. In this happiness course, students were given opportunities to expand their personal experiences by exposing themselves to new people and activities. They were given choices on how to reflect on their experiential learning activities in a way that was meaningful to them (e.g., experience-specific or theme-specific reflections). This flexibility gave students room to develop their individuality rather than conform to a preset standard. Given the fact that the definition of happiness is personal and dynamic, adopting multiple teaching approaches as suggested by Wurdinger and Carlson (2009) to promote experiential learning can encourage college students to explore their own happiness.
Interpersonal domains focus primarily on exchanging experiences and ideas with people who might see things differently from the learner. Dialogues are emphasized in this happiness course. Students had opportunities to interact with a cancer survivor and his family, a prolific scholar of Ikeda studies, the interpreters of the Nature Park, faculty across campuses, and peers in different disciplines. Students listened to each other with compassion and understood people as an individual. Dialogue gave the students in this happiness course an opportunity to practice “self-distancing” by seeing the world through a third-person’s eyes. Experiential learning activities in the interpersonal domains are especially connected to the working principles of experiential education emphasized by Chapman and colleagues (1995). Interactive and cooperative learning enable college students to find their shared commonalities and cultivate tolerance to create the path to happiness together.
Intergroup domains include activities like final projects and expositions to bring people of different groups together. For example, to complete the final projects of the course, students went out to find information, ideas, and materials in the community. Beside the projects, students across groups worked together to discuss the format and sequence of their presentations to enhance the cohesion and engagement of the exposition for diverse audiences. Having a sense of interdependence and a joint goal in mind, intergroup activities create time and space for college students to deepen their understanding of absolute happiness and further help others do the same.
Limitations of the Study
There were a number of limitations to our study. First, due to COVID-19, the campus was closed right before the students in the second semester were going to present their final projects. The exposition was suddenly canceled and students had to create online posters instead. This not only decreased students’ interactions with others but also resulted in our inconsistency of data analyses on students’ final projects across semesters. However, the objective and the structure of this happiness course design were not changed due to COVID-19. The pandemic created an unexpected learning opportunity for the instructor and the students to resolve issues surfaced during experiential learning activities creatively. Second, it might be helpful to teach students the six life conditions for absolute happiness more explicitly by having a concrete experience for each condition, rather than having one concrete experience that involves multiple conditions. This may also enhance the analysis of the six life conditions for absolute happiness. Third, this study mainly focuses on the analysis of the development of the happiness course. The course did not have quantitative data to show students’ self-evaluation of their experiential learning. We recommend that future courses about happiness adopt grading criteria for personal application assignments created by A. Y. Kolb and Kolb’s (2017a). These criteria can help guide both instructors and their students to monitor learning experiences more systematically. It is worth noting that self-evaluation has limitations and concerns (Herzog & Bowman, 2011), and thus self-report data should be validated by the use of multiple data sources. Finally, we included students’ perspectives aligned with the topics of happiness they were engaging with (e.g., good relationships, art and human spirit, etc.). To enhance methodological rigor, adopting a systematic approach to codebook development is recommended in future studies.
Conclusion
Various experiential learning activities linked to Daisaku Ikeda’s six life conditions of absolute happiness were used in this study as an example of enacting experiential education on happiness in higher education. The happiness course based on Kolb’s model demonstrates that students could deepen their understanding of absolute happiness through experiential learning activities. The ultimate goal of education is to help students fulfill their lives and lead their lives filled with boundless joy. Therefore, as researchers and educators, we need to find ways to help college students understand that greatness is found within their own lives and each of them is capable of creating happiness for themselves and for others. We hope the preliminary findings of our research study will add valuable ideas and information to the development of experiential education on happiness in higher education.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Laura H. Kawaguchi for her critical comments and thorough editing of this work.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
