Category
Applied
Description
Schools are experiencing rising levels of disengagement, stress, and declining connectedness, while simultaneously facing high rates of educator burnout and attrition. Psychological hope is strongly associated with engagement, well-being, and resilience. It is often treated as an emotional trait as opposed to a cognitive skill that can be intentionally developed through systems and environments. Grounded in Snyder’s hope theory, which proposes hope in quantifiable terms as a goal-directed thinking process composed of agency, pathways, and goals, this project proposes and examines measuring hope and utilizing a tier-based system of support designed to strengthen psychological hope among both students and educators in real-world school contexts. Using an applied program evaluation design, the framework integrates universal, targeted, and intensive hope-building practices aligned with existing school support structures and is implemented across diverse educational settings, including an elementary school and an alternative high school. Psychological hope for students and staff is assessed using validated hope measures, alongside indicators of educator burnout and student engagement. Pre- and post-implementation data are examined alongside staff reflections to assess feasibility, the extent to which the approach was used, and changes in hope-related outcomes. This project contributes to psychology by extending hope theory into system-level school practices, integrating student and educator hope within a unified framework, and positioning hope as a measurable, learnable cognitive skill supported through specific structures, relationships, and practices.
Teaching Hope as a Measurable Skill: Building Resilience in Students and Educators
Applied
Schools are experiencing rising levels of disengagement, stress, and declining connectedness, while simultaneously facing high rates of educator burnout and attrition. Psychological hope is strongly associated with engagement, well-being, and resilience. It is often treated as an emotional trait as opposed to a cognitive skill that can be intentionally developed through systems and environments. Grounded in Snyder’s hope theory, which proposes hope in quantifiable terms as a goal-directed thinking process composed of agency, pathways, and goals, this project proposes and examines measuring hope and utilizing a tier-based system of support designed to strengthen psychological hope among both students and educators in real-world school contexts. Using an applied program evaluation design, the framework integrates universal, targeted, and intensive hope-building practices aligned with existing school support structures and is implemented across diverse educational settings, including an elementary school and an alternative high school. Psychological hope for students and staff is assessed using validated hope measures, alongside indicators of educator burnout and student engagement. Pre- and post-implementation data are examined alongside staff reflections to assess feasibility, the extent to which the approach was used, and changes in hope-related outcomes. This project contributes to psychology by extending hope theory into system-level school practices, integrating student and educator hope within a unified framework, and positioning hope as a measurable, learnable cognitive skill supported through specific structures, relationships, and practices.
