The project’s aim: an intervention

Long time no see! We had a lot to work on and are now proud to give you a quick update on how things were going these last weeks.

From the beginning, the initial aim of the whole PhD project was to create and test an intervention tailored to promote student well-being in a systemic manner. As most interventions focus on the individual (teaching students how to be more resilient or mindful, for instance), we decided to begin from scratch.

Together with two colleagues, we came up with a boardgame, based upon snakes & ladders (Dutch: ganzenbord). We adapted it to fit the Self-Determination Theory and the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness stated within it. Voilà – the result!

The boardgame aims to raise awareness regarding the importance of these three needs within the educational environment, so that students and teachers can discuss how they want to adapt the course to fit those needs afterwards. We are really curious how the intervention will work out in the end in the three courses we will test it with – and will keep you posted here!

Currently, we are working on an online version of the game, which we will promote here as well as soon as it will be ready. But if you are already curious, you can download the intervention manual here to get an initial taste of how the intervention will look like.