CLINICAL RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS
Please note: All posters will be displayed in
Salons 10-12.
FRIDAY, 10:15-11:00 AM
Rosaen C, Benn R.
Adolescent students' experience of meditation: a qualitative
study.
University of Michigan ritabenn@umich.edu
The purpose of this study was to explore the meditative
experience of adolescents who practiced Transcendental Meditationª (TM).
The practice of TM consists of sitting quietly with eyes closed and
silently repeating an individually-assigned mantra. Ten seventh-grade
African American students (ages 12-14), five male and five female, from
a Detroit charter school participated in this study. Study participants
were randomly selected from a cohort of students who had been instructed
in the TM technique at the school a year earlier. Students participating
in the study had been meditating regularly in the school gym with a
TM-instructed resource room teacher during the first and last ten minutes
of each school day.
This study used a grounded theory exploratory approach
to discern the effects of TM on adolescent's students' sense of self,
relationships and behaviors. Open-ended interviews served as the primary
data source for theme development. Students were interviewed according
to a nine-question protocol that probed for how meditation affected
their lives: their relationships, extra-curricular activities, feelings
about school, and their visions for themselves. The primary author transcribed,
coded, and developed emerging themes from student interviews using a
qualitative software package, Atlas-ti. The themes were verified for
reliability in consultation with the second author.
The interviews revealed that students attributed many
effects and benefits to the daily practice of meditation. Five themes
emerged. Firstly, they portrayed the meditative process as boring, yet
positive. They also described its immediate impact as variable and state-dependent.
The state of boredom and variability of immediate impact did not take
away from the overall value of their experience. Students perceived
many positive byproducts of meditation. These included a pervading state
of restful alertness, heightened social emotional responsiveness (increased
self-reflection, self-control, and emotional flexibility) and improved
academic performance.
These themes depicted in narratives of meditating
adolescents suggest a framework for understanding how TM affects the
adolescent. The state of restful alertness induced by meditation appears
central to facilitating growth in social-emotional capacities. It appears
to regulate the emotional labiality, increase positive states, and broaden
the social cognitive capacities required for accelerated academic achievement.
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