Huy Phan

By Huy P. Phan and Bing H. Ngu

The Framework of Achievement Bests, which was recently published in Educational Psychology Review, makes a theoretical contribution to the study of positive psychology. The Framework of Achievement Bests provides an explanatory account of a person’s optimal best practice from his/her actual best. Another aspect emphasizes on the saliency of the psychological process of optimization, which is central to our understanding of person’s optimal functioning in a subject matter. Achieving an exceptional level of best practice (e.g. achieving excellent grades in mathematics) does not exist in isolation, but rather depends on the potent impact of optimization. This chapter, theoretical in nature, focuses on an in‐depth examination of the expansion of the Framework of Achievement Bests. Our discussion of the Framework of Achievement Bests, reflecting a methodical conceptualization, is benchmarked against another notable theory for understanding, namely: Martin Seligman’s PERMA theory. For example, for consideration, one aspect that we examine entails the extent to which the Framework of Achievement Bests could explain the optimization of each of the five components of PERMA (e.g. how does the Framework of Achievement Bests explain the optimization of engagement?).

Part of the book: Quality of Life and Quality of Working Life

By Huy P. Phan, Hui-Wen Wang, Jen-Hwa Shih, Sheng-Ying Shi, Ruey-Yih Lin and Bing H. Ngu

The concept of ‘optimal functioning’ has emerged as a major line of research development in educational psychology. Optimal functioning, which reflects the paradigm of positive psychology, is concerned with a person’s achievement of maximization in his/her functioning, whether it is mental, cognitive, emotional, or social. This inquiry places strong emphasis on importance of flourishing, happiness, and the proactivity of human endeavors. An important question then for consideration, from this testament, is how researchers optimize the achievement of optimal functioning. We have recently made progress by focusing on empirical research development and methodological conceptualizations into the study of optimization. Our conceptualizations, collectively, contend that there are psychological, educational, and psychosocial variables that operate as sources of ‘energization’, which then stimulate the buoyancy of motivation, personal resolve, effective functioning, strength, and effort expenditure. Energization, in its totality, from our postulation, may then arouse, intensify, and sustain a person’s internal state of functioning. Our cross-institutional, cross-cultural research collaboration (e.g., Australia, Malaysia, and Taiwan), to date, has considered one notably construct that could serve as a source of internal energization for the achievement of functioning: mindfulness. We strongly believe that the totality of mindfulness, positive in nature, could play a central role in the psychological processes of human agency.

Part of the book: Educational Psychology