Unit Synopsis
This unit will introduce you to the paradigm of positive psychology, and explore the development of this specialist area over the past 20 years. In this unit, you will explore the discipline's emphasis on flourishing and strengths-based approaches, and examine how these differ from traditional psychological frameworks. The unit examines conceptualisation and measurement of wellbeing and the application of positive psychology at the individual, group, community, and organisational level.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 8 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
There are no pre-requisites for the unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 20% |
| 2. Essay | 40% |
| 3. Presentation | 40% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Student Unit and Teacher Evaluation responses and student emails.
Students appreciated the support and encouragement provided.
The teaching team will continue to use a supportive and encouraging approach.
Teaching staff continued to provide a highly supportive, engaging and encouraging learning environment, which is reflected in this year's SUTE survey responses.
Source: Student Unit and Teacher Evaluation responses.
Students found the unit content interesting, comprehensive, and relevant to daily life, but some students wished to see a more explicit connection between weekly Moodle content and the assessments.
The teaching team will maintain the unit content and revisit the weekly Moodle workbooks to embed explicit connections to the assessment tasks.
Both the Moodle workbooks and the Tutorial content were enhanced to provide additional explicit connections to Assessment tasks. A new week of Moodle Workbook content, explicitly devoted to Assessment 3, was also introduced to provide more detail regarding the measurement of wellbeing. Moodle Workbooks were also enhanced as part of continual improvement actions, to include recent research updates from the past year.
Source: Student Unit and Teacher Evaluation responses and student emails.
Students appreciated their multi-modal interactions with the Unit Coordinator and the supportive and encouraging learning environment, which enabled them to build their confidence with the unit content.
The teaching team will continue to use a supportive and encouraging approach.
In Progress
Source: Student Unit and Teacher Evaluation responses, student emails and in-class feedback
Students valued the comprehensive and engaging nature of the unit content and its relevance for practical application in the real world. While one student requested a more explicit unpacking of the weekly Moodle content within the Tutorials, many students found the Tutorials to be an engaging and relevant extension of their learning.
The teaching team will maintain the quality of the unit content, interaction, and feedback, and also revisit the Tutorials to embed some more explicit connections to the weekly Workbook content.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Analyse the key theoretical and empirical developments in positive psychology
- Apply the major principles and theories of Positive Psychology in an applied context
- Identify and evaluate ways to conceptualise and measure wellbeing in an applied context.
N/A - no external accreditation requirement.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | ||
| 2 - Essay | • | • | • |
| 3 - Presentation | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | • | • | • |
| 2 - Communication | • | • | • |
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | • | • | • |
| 4 - Research | • | • | • |
| 5 - Self-management | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |