The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Mindful Listening Instruction on Music Listening Sensitivity and Music Listening Enjoyment. The type of mindfulness investigated in this study was of the social-psychological type, which shares both commonalities with and distinctions from meditative mindfulness. Enhanced context awareness, openness to new information, situation in the present, awareness of novel distinctions, and awareness of multiple possible perspectives (cognitive flexibility) are components of social-psychological mindfulness. A pretest-posttest control group design was used for this study. Two different age groups of students were studied: fourth-grade students (N = 42) and undergraduate non-music major college students (N = 48). The fourth-grade participants in this study were selected from an elementary school in a large city in the Northeastern United States. The college students were selected from a large university in the Southeastern United States. Participants were randomized into either the experimental or control group. Gordon’s Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation and Advanced Measures of Music Audiation were used as a pretest for fourth-grade students and college students, respectively. The results showed no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups. Student demographical information was also collected and reported. The treatment consisted of 10 lessons for fourth-grade students. Five of the 10 lessons were used with the college students. For each age level, participants in both groups, Mindful Listening and Control, received instruction using listening-map-based and non-listening-map-based lessons from the Share the Music textbook series. Students in the Mindful Listening groups also received listening instructions designed to promote mindful listening. Music Listening Sensitivity was measured using the phrasing test from the Sensitivity portion of Gordon’s Music Aptitude Profile (MAP-P), as well as the researcher-created Anderson Test of Music Listening Sensitivity (ATMLS). Music Listening Enjoyment was measured using students’ ratings of their Listening Enjoyment after each lesson on a seven-point Likert-type scale. Results indicated that Mindful Listening Instruction yielded higher scores, which were statistically significant (at α = .05), for Music Listening Sensitivity (as measured by both the ATMLS and the MAP-P) and Music Listening Enjoyment for fourth-grade and college-student participants.

The purpose of this thesis will be to examine one student's personal struggle in life and how those events have helped him to find his purpose and reason for being. This examination will be done by using a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) approach to explain how music has been at the forefront of all moral and ethical decisions ever made in his life in order to find his true calling or vocation. This thesis will be broken down into 3 main chapters with several sub chapters taking the reader though the life of Jared M. Ford. This thesis will then culminate with the authors own understanding of what he feels is his purpose for living. A fourth and chapter will also be included to show the author's own musical works in an attempt to give the reader a better understanding of how music has helped him to understand his true calling.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / This study was an experimental trial of a classroom-based intervention to influence mindfulness among MBA students at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MBA students at MIT Sloan and elsewhere are conditioned to look forward and reflect on the past only to the degree that it helps plan for the future. They are rarely taught to be aware of what is occurring in the current moment. Training students to be more mindful, that is better able to be aware of and to pay attention to present moment experience would contribute to the mission of MBA programs to create leaders by giving students meaningful insight into their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Within the literatures of medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and education, investigators have found that mindfulness has been positively correlated with improved well-being, reduced stress, better decision-making and perspective-taking, as well as improved personal relationships (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Block-Lerner, Adair, Plumb, Rhatigan, & Orsillo, 2007; Dekeyser, Raes, Leijssen, Leysen, & Dewulf, 2008; De Dea Roglio & Light, 2009; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). While the potential benefits of mindfulness have been established in multiple fields, there is scant research on mindfulness and MBA students. This research study explored whether brief mindfulness meditation exercises, embedded in an existing course, would influence MBA students' levels of mindfulness as measured by the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003). In the fall 2014 semester, a sample of 158 first-year MBA students from MIT Sloan participated in an experiment with modified randomization of a pre/post design. Data analysis revealed that participant scores on the MAAS decreased significantly from pretest to posttest, though less so in the treatment group. These findings suggest that the intervention was not robust enough to exert a positive influence on participants' levels of mindfulness in the graduate business school context. This research contributes to the literature by providing important information about the requisite exposure to and scalability of the intervention in research on mindfulness meditation in higher education. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Background: Adolescent obesity has tripled over the last three decades and is associated with an 80 percent risk of adult obesity, hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and decreased life expectancy. Current adolescent obesity medical recommendations include bariatric surgery and appetite suppressants which lower BMI, but present serious health risks. Nutrition and exercise interventions promote health, however, meta-analysis reveal do not lower BMI. Mindful eating, a behavioral skill, reconnecting eating to satiety cues, and has potential as an anti-obesity intervention which lowers BMI, while promoting health. Study Aims: Aim 1: To determine the effect of a mindful eating intervention compared to usual diet and exercise information on BMI of obese female adolescents. Aim 2: To determine if the effect of a mindful eating intervention on BMI of obese female adolescents is sustained over time. Aim 3: To determine the feasibility of conducting a group mindful eating intervention over six weeks for obese adolescent girls in their school setting. Methods: Obesity was measured by Body Mass Index (BMI) = Weight in Pounds / Height in inches x Height in inches x 703. The sample included adolescent females aged 14-17 years with BMI>90th%. Participants were randomized to an intervention group receiving a 6 week mindful eating intervention and a comparison group receiving the usual care of nutrition and physical activity handouts. Participants' BMI was measured at baseline, immediately post intervention and at 4 week follow up assessing intervention effectiveness. Results: ANOVA results demonstrate a statistically significant difference in BMI between the experimental and comparison groups F(1,2)=22.24, p<.001. On average, the experimental group's BMI decreased 0.71, whereas the comparison group's BMI increased by 1.1 over the 6 week intervention. The experimental group's BMI continued to decline at the 4 week follow up. Attrition from the study was 38%, below the 45% set feasibility threshold. A group mindful eating intervention over six weeks for obese adolescent girls was effective in lowering BMI sustained over time is feasible. Teaching the behavioral skill of mindful eating holds great promise for combatting obesity in adolescents. Future study should include a school based intervention with a larger more diverse sample.

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Counselling psychology is increasingly curious regarding the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. This research explores the relationship between the clinical work of psychotherapists and their long-term Buddhist-informed meditation. This is an emerging and cross-cultural field. Thorne's (2008) interpretive description guided this exploratory qualitative study of the experiences of four registered psychologists. This study finds that meditation supports an unconditional, compassionate therapeutic stance that serves therapy through the development of the therapeutic relationship. Further, Buddhist-informed meditation appears to promote integrative functioning in the therapists and is related to integrated clinical decision-making. This study dips into areas of transpersonal and Buddhist psychology that require further culturally-sensitive investigation. Future directions for research are presented. / Counselling Psychology

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to contribute to existing gap in the literature regarding mindful consumption, which is the fundamental subject of this thesis. The research is focused on the identification of factors that influence the sense of caring in Swedish student’s mindset and temperance in their behavior with respect to mindful consumption. The literature search revealed that these factors are yet to be identified. Therefore, the present study aims to contribute to existing gap in literature by exploring Swedish students’ mindful consumption and extracting the internal and external factors that influence it. Research Methodology: By conducting an in-depth case study analysis, the present research relied on the application of mindful consumption framework in order to accomplish the above-mentioned purpose of the research. The present paper was conducted by applying a qualitative research strategy. A total of six in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and the collected data were further analyzed by applying thematic analysis method for qualitative data analysis in which the data were first coded and later these codes were analyzed and grouped together in order to develop themes that would further indicate the factors that influence the sense of caring in mindset and temperance in behavior among Swedish students. Findings: The findings have revealed that internal and external factors influence mindful consumption mindset and behavior of Swedish students. Furthermore, it was revealed that these factors highly interact which each other and together reinforce mindful consumption mindset and behavior. The findings further revealed that mindful consumption needs to be further promoted by governments, the media, lobby institutions and other organizations, especially because people view it as important and capable of contributing and changing current unsustainable consumption patterns.

Observational drawing has many benefits, yet it can be a difficult and frustrating curriculum for students and teachers alike. As I was teaching elementary and college art classes simultaneously, I noticed a significant discrepancy between my younger and older students. Students in my elementary art classes loved to draw and often expressed how excited they were to make art. However, students in my college art classes were more hesitant and self-conscious about drawing and did not believe they could progress artistically. Many of these students had abandoned drawing in elementary or middle school. This pattern evokes the U curve of artistic development as discussed in Harvard's Project Zero (Davis, 1997). Because of this lack of skill and confidence, many of the students in my college classes could not fully apply themselves to reap the benefits of observational drawing. How can educators help college students reclaim their confidence as visual artists after years of avoidance and fear? In an attempt to help college students overcome these anxieties and improve their art skills, I created and implemented a mindfulness intervention in a traditional drawing curriculum. Using case study methodology, I conducted a qualitative study throughout the winter semester of 2019 at Brigham Young University to examine the affordances or limitations of implementing mindfulness in an undergraduate drawing curriculum.

In the current study, I examined the efficacy of mindful self-compassion, imagery, and goal-setting (i.e., treatment as usual) interventions on athletic identity, knee self-efficacy, subjective knee functioning, and perceived injustice, following ACL surgery. Twenty-nine adolescent and young adult athletes participated in the interventions and completed self-report measures assessing each of these constructs prior to their surgery and over seven weeks post-ACL surgery. HLM analyses demonstrated significant decreases in athletic identity and increases in subjective knee functioning from pre-surgery through seven weeks post-surgery. Intervention group further explained these decreases, though no one intervention clearly emerged as more or less beneficial. No significant changes were observed for athletes' ratings of knee self-efficacy or perceived injustice. Limitations and areas for future research are discussed.

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