The impact of group singing on children's subjective well‐being: Mixed methods research

J.A.R. Davies · Sue Bentham · Francis K. Duah

9 citations0/0 files storedChildren & Society

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Diverse Music Education Insights Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction Music Therapy and Health

Abstract

Abstract Improving the well‐being of children has been widely discussed, yet research‐exploring strategies aimed at improving this in school‐based settings is still an emerging field of research. This mixed methods study investigated the impact of a singing intervention on the subjective well‐being of a class of 27 children aged 8–9. Over the course of 2 weeks, the class took part in 20 minutes of daily group singing with a focus on learning popular music that they chose. The sessions were delivered by a generalist primary teacher who had previously worked as a music specialist. In measuring children's subjective well‐being with emphasis on life satisfaction, the ‘Student's Life Satisfaction Scale’ was administered to the children pre‐ and post‐intervention. Of the 27 children, four (identified as disadvantaged) were interviewed as part of a focus group at the end of the intervention and questions centred around the children's opinions and enjoyment of the intervention. Results indicated that there was a much lower proportion of children with low subjective well‐being scores after the intervention than before the intervention (as measured by the SLSS questionnaire). Analysis of the Likert scale data showed a ‘medium’ ( d = 0.5) effect size. Thematic analysis of the focus group revealed that singing had a broadly positive effect on the well‐being of those children, which is consistent with findings found in similar trials involving adults. Links to the theoretical framework of ‘flow’ by Csikszentmihalhi (1975) are drawn, alongside the PERMA well‐being framework model (Seligman, 2012) to help explain the effects of being engrossed in an enjoyable activity such as group singing and how this in turn can impact subjective well‐being.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 9 citations exist upstream.

References

2006Using thematic analysis in psychology 1994Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook 2007Research Methods in Education 2001On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being 1995The structure of psychological well-being revisited.2000Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index.2020Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions 2011Flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being

Cited by

2025Singing, health and wellbeing in young children 2026The mental health and wellbeing outcomes and mechanisms of change in arts inclusive programs for children aged 6–12: a systematic review

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.