Around the world, musical engagement frequently involves movement. Most adults easily clap or sway to a wide range of tempos, even without formal musical training. The link between movement and music emerges early--young infants move more rhythmically to music than speech, but do not reliably align their movements to the beat. Laboratory work…

Objective: Loneliness is increasingly acknowledged as a public health concern due to its association with morbidity and mortality. The prevalence of loneliness is highest in the post-secondary population. Understanding the correlates of loneliness may assist in developing policy and program interventions. Participants and Methods: Post-secondary…

Given the value of natural environments for climate change solutions and human health, public support for preserving and restoring natural ecosystems is important. One avenue to such support is to increase connection to nature, so it is important to understand factors that influence this characteristic. In the context of Songs for Nature…

Evidence generally supports a positive association between growth mindset and academic outcomes, even if the experimental evidence for growth mindset interventions is somewhat more tenuous. From an applied perspective, the concept of growth mindsets has grown in popularity with a proliferation of materials readily available to teachers and school…

Environmental interpretation can improve sustainability by mitigating the negative impacts of nature-based recreation. However, we do not fully understand the psychological factors that influence interpretation's efficacy in changing human behaviours. Specifically, the role of emotions has been understudied within environmental psychology and…

Purpose: Physical literacy is understood to be important for adolescents' behavioral and psychological wellness. Yet, to date, limited empirical data exist to support such reasoning. Addressing this gap, the present study examined relationships between physical literacy and early adolescents' physical education engagement, leisure-time exercise…

This study analyzes how students' reported teaching practices of their teachers and their attitudes towards science are related to the science achievements of four high-performing countries/economies in PISA 2015: Hong Kong, China, Canada, and Finland. A study of these regions can shed light on the commonalities of and differences between the…

Objective: To examine the differences in experiences of stress, emotional well-being, and physical activity among international and domestic students. Participants: Domestic (n = 4,035) and international (n = 605) students at a large Canadian university. Methods: Responses to items on stress, emotional well-being (happiness and satisfaction with…

Urban universities with a predominantly commuting student population face distinct challenges in fostering social connections. Commuting students spend less time on campus and have fewer opportunities for organized and spontaneous social interactions with other students. The campus experience for commuter students tends to center around the…

More than 10% of children in Ontario have an additional need that may influence long-term lifestyle patterns, including physical activity (PA). This study sought to assess the status of PA as well as the barriers to and facilitators of PA for families in southwestern Ontario raising children with and without disabilities. Complete survey data were…

We conducted two field studies to examine whether songwriting retreats held in a natural setting would increase nature connectedness, as well as improve emotional well-being and performance on a creative reasoning task. In the first study, high school students took part in songwriting instruction either in their school or at a national wildlife…

Objective: To determine the prevalence of university students who have ever engaged in self-harm and to examine its correlates. Frequency of thinking about self-harm was explored as a secondary outcome. Participants: Students at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Methods: This cross-sectional study was completed via an online…

Background: The effect of basic needs and motivational climate has been widely examined in recent years in the field of achievement motivation. Nevertheless, recent studies indicate the need to consider students' (with or without special needs) social goals (e.g. affiliation, recognition, status and responsibility goals) in order to achieve a…

This paper focuses on eight conditions that kept international master's students (IMS) in a Southern Ontario university happy and engaged in their studies during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the first phase of the Appreciative Inquiry's (AI) 4-D cycle--i.e., discovery--this doctoral study conducted 14 individual…

This article reports on results from a narrative inquiry into the experiences of four students who completed an elective yoga course as part of their high school program in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the participants' stories of their yoga experiences. Overall, students were able to…