BEHV1010 Positive Psychology

Assignment 1A: Applied professional task – Reflection 1

Team/Individual task: Individual

Word/time limit: 500 words

Weighting: 10% (40% total for 1A & 1B)

Due date: 5pm AEST Sunday 15 June 2025 (Week 4)

After you have read this information, go to the Assignment 1A Q&A discussion board to ask any questions and see what your peers are saying about this assignment.

Assignment overview

To pass this subject of study, you must achieve an aggregated grade of at least 50%. Although this assignment is not a mandatory submission, completing this assignment will give you the best chance of achieving this minimum requirement.

This assignment is focused on a new novel Positive Psychology Intervention (PPI), where increasing valued contributing behaviours is intended to increase wellbeing. Similar PPIs have shown beneficial outcomes (Pressman et al., 2015).  

Valued contribution (Arnold et al., 2024b) is a new psychometric construct covering a wide range of prosocial behaviours. Valued contributing behaviour has been defined as “Actions or presence that add value to other people, places or initiatives” and valued contribution as “The positive impact valued by the person and/or the recipients of contributing behaviour” (Arnold et al., 2024a, p. 15).  

In this assignment, you will reflect on your experiences of valued contribution and its impact on meaning, mattering, and wellbeing. You will complete surveys, engage in contributing behaviours, and write two reflections using the Assignment Template for reflection reports (DOCX 36 KB):

Reflection 1 (due in Week 4).

Reflection 2 (due during the Exam Period).

This assignment supports Subject Learning Outcomes 2, 3 and 4. 

Use of generative artificial intelligence

Ethical use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is permitted in this assessment task. Any use of content from generative AI tools must be acknowledged. See advice on acknowledging the use of generative AI on the Library How do I reference content from ChatGPT and other AI tools (Western Sydney University Library, 2023) web page. Be aware that the output from generative AI tools may be incorrect, incomplete or biased.

If your studies have been adversely affected by circumstances beyond your control, you may request an extension using the following options.

Note: A request must be made within 48 hours of the assignment due date.

Request an extension

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Assignment details

Read through the following steps to understand and meet the requirements of this assignment:

Part 1: Fill in the first survey

Fill in the first survey and complete the baseline assessments, which measure contribution, mattering, meaning and wellbeing. Specifically, we are using the Valued Contribution Outcome Measure - Long (VCOM; Arnold et al., 2024), the General Mattering Scale (GMS; Marcus, 2018), the PROMIS Purpose and Meaning 4a scale (PROMIS M&P; Salsman et al., 2020), and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007).   

Step 1: Check Announcements for your sign-up link to the survey from your OLA. Make sure you enter your student email address correctly when you sign up, your student email should look like this: StudentID@student.westernsydney.edu.au 

Once you’ve signed up, within a few minutes you should get an email to your student email inbox that will take you to the survey task. Try signing up again and check your email address if you don’t receive any email after 5 minutes.  

Over the coming weeks, the system will send you multiple emails as it prompts you to do the next part of the task, or record what you have been doing, and how your wellbeing scores has been tracking. Make sure you respond to these prompts relatively quickly – some of the surveys will close if you don’t complete them within a few days. You need to stay engaged throughout the Trimester. 

Step 2: As you complete the VCOM, think of ideas for valued contributing behaviours that you aren't currently doing that you could try. 

Part 2: Choose any new or different valued contributing behaviour(s)

Step 1: Choose any new or different valued contributing behaviour(s) you can think of and that you would be interested in trying. Do that activity or behaviour over the next fortnight.

Select the tab for some ideas to get you started, but you can do any activity that would meet the definition of valued contributing behaviour: 

Ideas to get you started

Step 2: Pay attention to the following timeline:

Assignment 1 timeline

1 week later 

One week after you start the survey (so in approximately week 2 or 3), you will be emailed a link to ask you which new or different valued contributing behaviour(s) you have focused on, and what domains they fall into (Family and Friends, Community and Society, the Economy, the Environment). You might want to focus on just one or two behaviours or domains. 

Week 4 

During week 4, an announcement will be made sharing the cohort results. That is, on average, how have students’ meaning, mattering and wellbeing scores changed after engaging in more valued contributing behaviours. 

At the end of week 4, your first reflection will be due. This will just be 500 words focused on your experience of valued contribution so far, and how that compares to the cohort. See the following information for what your first reflection needs to cover. 

Middle of the trimester 

During the middle of the Trimester, you will do additional PPI assessment tasks focused on gratitude and then character strengths. At the same time, we want you to start doing another new or different valued contributing behaviour(s). It’s ok if those valued contributing behaviour(s) overlap with what you do particularly in the character strengths PPI. 

9 weeks later 

9 weeks after you first started the survey, you will again be emailed a link to ask you which new or different valued contributing behaviour(s) you have focused on. 

Week 11 

Another announcement will be made sharing the latest cohort results. That is, on average, how have students meaning, mattering and wellbeing changed after engaging in even more valued contributing behaviours. 

Exam Period 

Your final reflection will be due during the Exam Period. This will be 1000 words, focused on your experience of valued contribution, how your experience compares with the cohort and your experience of PPIs overall. See the following information for what your final reflection needs to cover.

Assignment 1 timeline (2025) created by Western Sydney University

Part 3: Completing the reflections

Reflection 1

Complete the first reflection of 500 words, due at the end of Week 4.

The first reflection should answer the following questions. It is probably best to be written in this order:

Reflect on what you have learnt so far, and what the science says, about happiness and meaning. Include scientific reference(s). 

Reflect on your experience of valued contribution so far: 

What new or different valued contributing behaviour(s) did you do? Why did you choose that valued contributing behaviour? How much / often did you do it? Or if you haven’t done any new or different behaviours, why not, and what role does valued contribution currently play in your life? 

What was your subjective experience? What did it feel like to do those valued contributing behaviour(s)? Was it positive, negative or neutral? 

Was your subjective experience aligned with your scores on the measures of mattering, meaning and wellbeing?   

How did your experience compare to the cohort scores? 

Can you explain why the activity did or didn’t have an impact on you? Can any scientific literature or theoretical frameworks help to explain this? 

What are your thoughts to try next in terms of valued contribution leading to the next reflection, or in general?  

Reflection 2

Complete the second reflection of 1000 words, due at the end of the Exam Period.

Go to Assignment 1B: Applied professional task – Reflection 2 to read more about this second reflection and submit your work.

Key information

Tips and requirements for both reflections:

You must use the Assignment Template for reflection reports (DOCX 36 KB).

You must use APA 7 style 

You must include references to scientific literature. Please note: The reference list is not included in the word count. 

You must also complete and submit the AI use checklist included at the end of the template. Have a look at that template before you get started.  

Have a look at the marking rubrics. You get marks just for completing the activities. The marking rubric tells you what the marker will be looking for and gives you extra information on what you must include in your reflection. 

Give your reflection a title that reflects your subjective experience being positive, negative or neutral. That’s a part of the marking rubric criteria. 

The 500-word and 1000-word limits are upper limits, with no +10% leeway on the word limit. 

These are reflection reports and not a short answer workbook. Therefore, your real reflection report assignment should be written in full paragraphs and without the use of subheadings or questions (you will not have the word count to include the questions or subheadings).