Program
Education Doctorate
Year Approved
2019
First Advisor
Hering, Erica
Abstract
The incidence of mental health disorders continues to rise, and it is predicted that depression will be the second highest cause of disability, behind ischemic heart disease, for all ages and genders over the next decade (WHO, 2017). Mental health disorders in adults are quite clearly clearly understood; but mental health disorders in children and adolescents have not been as widely researched, particularly in relation to preventative and protective factors. This non-experimental quantitative study investigated the relationship between the dependent variables of well-being and resilience, and the independent variables of gender, racial, and cultural background, and physical activity levels of a cohort of 386 adolescents from 10-14 years of age at an international school in Singapore. The study utilized the child and youth resilience measure (CYRM-12), (Ungar, 2016) to measure resilience, and the PERMA profiler (Butler & Kern, 2016) to measure levels of well-being. The study results showed there to be a positive correlation between physical activity and increased levels of well-being and resilience in adolescents. There was no significant difference discovered in the different genders and the relationship with well-being and resilience. The analysis of racial and cultural background found there to be a significant difference between study participants in the PERMA subscales of relationships and accomplishment. Participants from a White or European background showed a significant difference compared to participants from an Asian background on the relationship subscale, and there was a significant difference between Asian and South Asian participants on the accomplishment subscale.
Degree Name
Education Doctorate
Document Type
Doctoral dissertation
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Symes, J. G. (2019). The Relationship Between Cultural Background, Gender, Physical Activity, and the Resilience and Well-Being Levels of Adolescents [Doctoral dissertation, Bethel University]. Spark Repository. https://spark.bethel.edu/etd/617