Journal of American College Health

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vach20

Mindfulness, happiness, and anxiety in a sample

of college students before and after taking a
meditation course

Claire Crowley, Laura Ring Kapitula & Dana Munk

To cite this article: Claire Crowley, Laura Ring Kapitula & Dana Munk (2022) Mindfulness,
happiness, and anxiety in a sample of college students before and after taking
a meditation course, Journal of American College Health, 70:2, 493-500, DOI:
10.1080/07448481.2020.1754839

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1754839

Published online: 05 May 2020.

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JOURNAL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH
2022, VOL. 70, NO. 2, 493–500
https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1754839

MAJOR ARTICLE

Mindfulness, happiness, and anxiety in a sample of college students

before and after taking a meditation course
Claire Crowley, MMa
, Laura Ring Kapitula, PhDb, and Dana Munk, PhDa
a
Department of Movement Science, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, USA; bDepartment of Statistics, Grand Valley State
University, Allendale, Michigan, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Objective: To explore differences in mindfulness, happiness, and perceived anxiety in a sample of Received 21 May 2019
college students before and after taking a meditation course. Revised 6 February 2020
Participants: Participants were college students at a primarily undergraduate institution enrolled Accepted 29 March 2020
in an experiential meditation class (n ¼ 74) and a non-meditation class comparison group (n ¼ 73).
KEYWORDS
Methods: The study design was a before-after observational study with two groups and three College stress and anxiety;
dependent variables: the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory college student well-being;
and the Subjective Happiness Scale. happiness; meditation;
Results: Students in the meditation course increased average subjective happiness and mindful- mindfulness
ness attention awareness. Mindfulness scores increased and anxiety decreased more for students
in the meditation class compared to students in the psychosocial class.
Conclusions: This research provides evidence that taking a semester long meditation course is
associated with improvements in college student well-being.

Introduction class found that mindfulness increased over time among

College students are often overwhelmed with the need to
balance work, school, family, and other life responsibilities
in addition to their academic work. Over the last 15 years,
college students’ reports of anxiety have nearly doubled. In
the 2019 National College Health Assessment (NCHA), 65%
of students surveyed reported feeling overwhelming anxiety
that negatively impacted their education. Furthermore, 45%
reported feeling so depressed it was difficult to function
over the past 12 months.1 A study by the Center for Disease
Control also indicated that 15.5% of adults in traditional
college ages 18–24 reported being diagnosed with a depres-
sive disorder and 13.0% of adults aged 18–24 report fre-
quent days of bad mental health.2
There is a growing base of literature that shows medita-
tion and its components of mindfulness are associated with
increased experience of momentary positive emotions as
well as greater appreciation of, and enhanced responsiveness
to, pleasant daily-life activities.3 A 2019 meta-analysis indi-
cated that compared to control groups, Mindfulness Based
Interventions had a large and significant effect in decreasing
college students’ anxiety and that pre-post comparisons also
showed significant reductions in anxiety.4 A study using
Transcendental Meditation with college students showed a
significant decline in stress, anxiety, depression and perfec-
tionism, and made recommendations for the use of medita-
tion as an adjunct to the treatment in college population.5 A
more recent study of college students enrolled in a meditation
the students; that there were increases in self-compassion
and positive coping and decreases in anxiety; and that
increased mindfulness mediated the changes in self-compassion
and anxiety.6
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is considered a core component of meditation
and is thought to include two key elements: maintaining
attention on the immediate experience, and maintaining an
attitude of acceptance toward this experience.7 Although
attention and awareness are relatively constant features of
normal functioning, mindfulness can be considered an
enhanced attention to and awareness of current experience
or present reality.8 The idea of this practice is to create an
attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance of ones
moment to moment experience without judgment, preoccu-
pation or suppression of the experience. During meditation,
practitioners are instructed to identify thoughts, emotions
and body sensations as they are occurring and to differenti-
ate between identifying with the experience as opposed to
simply identifying the experience (i.e. awareness that anxiety
is present instead of “I am anxious”).9
A study with fulltime students concluded that regular
mindfulness practice is a viable tool to enhance student suc-
cess and to enable higher level thinking.10 These students
reported being better able to focus their attention, experienced

CONTACT Laura Ring Kapitula kapitull@gvsu.edu Department of Statistics, Grand Valley State University, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI 49401.

Present address Claire Crowley Department of Kinesiology, Aquinas College, 1700 Fulton St. E., Grand Rapids, MI 49506, USA.
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
494 C. CROWLEY ET AL.
less stress and anxiety, and were able to achieve relaxation.10
Studies have also found that participants who scored high on
mindfulness also tended to score high on self-compassion,
psychological well-being, agreeableness, extraversion, openness,
and conscientiousness, and low on neuroticism.11 Additional
studies on mindfulness have been related to positive emotions
and psychological well-being as well.8,12 There is now docu-
mentation that positive emotions also place people on trajecto-
ries of growth, leaving them better able to ward off depressive
symptoms and become ever more satisfied with life.12
Happiness
When the mind rests on sensations, impressions, thoughts
and feelings grounded in the here and now, happiness seems
to spontaneously arise. Subjective happiness may be one of
the variables which is influenced by mindfulness and has
gained more importance with the positive psychology
trend.13 It arises from being aware of the experience that is
occurring now instead of being preoccupied with past or
future events.14 When the mind begins to focus on present
moment awareness (often the breath), distractions that come
from difficult emotions, judgements, past and future events
drop away.15 This leaves room for the pleasantries of each
moment and reduces anxiety and negative affect, augment-
ing the experience of hope, ultimately enhancing the state of
well-being.16
Neuroscientific research found a correlation between
meditation and happiness as well as a link to its ability to
reduce reactivity to emotional stimuli therefore enhancing
psychological well-being.17 With the use of PET scans, 8
monks with between 10,000 and 50,000 h of meditative prac-
tice, and a control group of non-meditating university stu-
dents were studied. Not only did the monks produce 30
times more gamma waves than the control group, but much
larger areas of their brains were activated during meditation,
especially in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain
responsible for positive emotions.18
The impact of mindfulness on everyday affect is an
important area study considering the 2019 NCHA reported
that over 50% of students experienced hopelessness and 70%
felt very sad over the past year.1 Evidence has suggested that
mindfulness practice can increase overall positive affect but
also reduce negative affect in response to adverse experien-
ces and daily stressors.19 Considering the hectic life of col-
lege students, improving daily affect as a coping strategy
is worthwhile.
Anxiety
Stress is a major issue for college students as they cope with
a variety of academic, social and personal challenges.20 In
2019, 45% of the students surveyed reported that stress was
the most common challenge to their academic performance.1
Stress can handicap abilities for learning, for holding infor-
mation in working memory, for reacting flexibly and cre-
atively, for focusing attention at will, and for planning and
organizing effectively.21,22
Studies have shown that meditation can reduce stress and
anxiety. One study found that daily meditation is effective
in maintaining lower levels of anxiety indicative of sound
mental health amongst university students.23 Findings have
also suggested that training college undergraduates in inte-
grated meditation programs can reduce their levels of per-
ceived stress.24 Furthermore, it has been argued that when
perceived stress and anxiety are reduced it makes room for
the experience of happiness.25 A study using MBSR also sug-
gested that regular practice of meditation cultivates mindful-
ness skills in everyday life, which in turn leads to improved
psychological functioning such as reduced stress and enhanced
well-being.26,27
This study sought to further study the association
between meditation and well-being in college students. To
that aim, a quantitative pre-post-test design with a treatment
and comparison group was used to further understand the
association between meditation practice and changes in per-
ceived mindfulness, happiness, and anxiety in college stu-
dents. The specific research questions for this study were
1. Do college students enrolled in a meditation class
exhibit increases in mindfulness and happiness, and/or
decreases in anxiety?
2. Do college students enrolled in a meditation class have
larger increases in mindfulness and happiness and larger
decreases in anxiety than college students enrolled in a
non-meditation psychosocial comparison class?
Methods
Participants
The population of interest for this study was undergraduate
students at the university level. The convenience sample
consisted of students enrolled in a 3-credit experiential
meditation class (n ¼ 74) and a comparison group of stu-
dents enrolled in 3-credit psychosocial aspects of physical
activity and sport class (n ¼ 73). The meditation group had
73% female students and the psychosocial group had 48%
female students. Both types of classes consisted of primarily
upperclassman. See Table 1 for more information on the
demographics of the participants. Both classes were open to
all students at the university and met for 75 min twice every
week for one semester. Students self-selected through regis-
tration for the courses and were not randomly assigned.
Some students in both groups dropped or added the classes
late, therefore were unavailable for both the pre- and post-
test and were not a part of the sample. There were a few
students who didn’t complete the forms, further reducing
the number of participants. There were two psychosocial
group sections fall 2011, and one winter 2012. Sections of
the meditation class were one winter 2011, one fall 2011,
and one winter 2012. Participants did not a receive any
incentives for their participation.
The meditation course used for this study was taught by
the PI and was modeled after the mindfulness discipline of
meditation which aims to open and expand one’s awareness
 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH 495

Table 1. Demographic information on participants. the format of lecture with the same time structure and cred-
Group its accumulation as the meditation class. The courses focus
Psychosocial Meditation was on the psychosocial context of sports, the psychology of
Sample Size 73 74 sport and exercise and its history. Some topics of discussion
Age were the role of personality in sport and exercise, motivation
Mean 21.6 20.6
Median 21.0 21.0
and its influence on participation, achievement, and adher-
SD 2.8 1.4 ence, the relationship between arousal/anxiety/stress and
Section Percentage Percentage performance, the use of mental imagery in sport and exer-
Winter 2012 30.1 33.8
Fall 2012 69.9 33.8
cise, the role of self-confidence in physical activity and
Winter 2013 0.0 32.4 effective goal setting techniques.
Gender


Male 52.1 27.0
Female 47.9 73.0 Procedure
Year at University


Freshman 0.0 14.9
Sophomore 9.6 6.8
Upon InstitutionalReviewBoard (IRB) approval, volunteers
Junior 39.7 24.3 were solicited by the primary investigator (PI). In the medi-
Senior 49.3 52.7 tation class, in which the PI also served as instructor, the
Other 1.4 1.4
Religious Affiliation
study was introduced to all students and it was made clear
Not Answered 5.5 2.7 that participation had no bearing on student’s grades if they
Protestant Christian 24.7 18.9 chose to opt out. It was also explained that they could with-
Roman Catholic 26.0 21.6
Evangelical Christian 12.3 6.8
draw from the study at any time with no consequence.
Muslim 1.4 1.4 Signed consents were then obtained by volunteers. For the
Hindu . 1.4 comparison group, which was a psychosocial aspect of phys-
Buddhist 1.4 1.4
Other 28.8 45.9 ical activity and sport class, the PI worked with the faculty
Race/Ethnicity member teaching the class to complete the same format.
African American 5.5 6.8 Once consent was obtained from all volunteers, they were
Asian American 2.7 2.7
Hispanic 1.4 1.4 given the surveys to complete during class time the first
Middle Eastern 0.0 0.0 week of the semester and again during the twelfth week of
Native American 0.0 0.0 the 15-week semester.
Pacific Islander 0.0 0.0
White 86.3 90.5
Other 4.1 2.7
Not Answered 1.4 1.4 Measures


Indicates statistically significant differences between the psychosocial and
meditation group for that variable, p < 0.01.
Three questionnaires were used for this study. The Mindfulness
Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), a 15-question scale
designed to assess mindfulness5 aimed at measuring one’s
of thoughts and feelings as they pass through the mind, awareness and attention to the present moment. The MAAS
without focusing on a single purpose. It involves three core items are rated using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost
elements: intention, attention, and attitude.20,26 always experiencing a particular scenario) to 6 (almost never
Because this meditation class was structured to meet uni- experiencing a particular scenario), then the MAAS is calcu-
versity criteria, attendance, class participation, weekly written lated by averaging the 6 items. The absolute range of the
contemplations and reading Wherever You Go, There You MAAS goes from 1 to 6 and a higher value implies greater
Are28 were required. Each week different concepts related to levels of mindfulness. Brown and Ryan8 discuss the psycho-
mindfulness meditation were explored including meditation metric properties of the MAAS, they report an observed
on forgiveness, compassion, and present moment awareness. internal item consistency of 0.82 in their student sample and
This was primarily an experiential class with limited lecture an observed intraclass correlation of 0.81 to estimate test-
involved. Much of the material was presented quietly to stu- retest reliability. They also provide additional evidence for the
dents while in meditation for the purpose of contemplation. validity and reliability of the measure, and provide the indi-
There were also long periods of silence to cultivate contem- vidual items. The second survey was the validated, 20-item
plation of the readings. Each bi-weekly class was broken into self-report called the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).29
2 or 3 meditations per class. Moreover, occasional guided Spielberger29 reported internal consistency between .86 and
meditations and breathing exercises were included. In add- .95 and test-retest reliability coefficients between .65 and .75.
ition to the meditations, students participated in interactive The STAI items are rated on a Likert scale with a range going
work with partners or small groups. This interaction was from 1 (not at all feeling a particular state of mind at this
used to facilitate community and provide opportunities for very moment) to 4 (very much so feeling a particular state of
questions and discussion. Students were also encouraged, but mind at this very moment). The absolute range of the STAI
not required, to practice meditation outside of class. goes from 20 to 80 and a higher value implies greater levels
The comparison (psychosocial) group was a course in the of anxiety. The last survey was a 4-item scale called the
same department with an emphasis on health and wellness Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS).30 This questionnaire uses a
within the context of sport and exercise. This course was in Likert scale ranging from 1 (not a very happy person in
496 C. CROWLEY ET AL.
response to a particular question) to 7 (a very happy person
in response to a particular question). Lyumbormisky and
Lepper30 give psychometric properties of the measure and
report internal item consistency ranging from .79 to .94
and test-retest reliability between .55 and .90, where the
group with a reliability measure of .55 was tested one year
apart. They also provide evidence of discriminant and conver-
gent validity for the SHS measure. The SHS has an absolute
range from one to seven and a higher value implies greater
levels of happiness.
Data analysis
The study design is an observational two group pre- and
post- test design with three dependent variables. The
dependent variables are the MAAS, the STAI and the SHS
scale scores as discussed above. A mixed model approach to
the analysis of treatment effects in before-after data as dis-
cussed by Gelman31 was used. In this approach time is
included as a covariate in the model and the correlation
between the pre- and post- test scores is modeled via the
variance structure. The mixed model approach with a het-
erogeneous unstructured variance/covariance matrix allowed
for the modeling of correlation between the three dependent
variables at the two different times points, and across time
points and also allowed for different variance/covariance for
the two groups. Gelman31 discusses how in the presence of
treatment effects we would expect more correlation between
pre- and post- measures in the comparison group and less
correlation in the treatment group. A mixed model with full
factorial fixed effects for variable, time and group, a random
effect for variable by group by course section, and an
unstructured variance/covariance matrix that allows for
between group differences was fit to the data. The model is
written below
yvgtsi ¼ lvgt þ cvgs þ evgti ,
where yvgtsi ¼ the score on variable v, for person i, in
group g and section s, at time t, v ¼ the dependent variable
(MAA, STAI or SHS), g ¼ group (meditation or psycho-
social), t ¼ time (pre- or post-), s ¼ section (1,2,3) for the
three different sections of each class taught for each group,
i ¼ person, lvgt ¼ the mean for each variable, group and
time, cvgs ¼ a random effect for each section since students
are nested within sections, and evgti ¼ the error term for
each person for variable v. The error term has mean zero
and an unstructured variance/covariance matrix that allows
for differing variance/covariance matrixes for each variable,
group and time and also allows for the modeling of the cor-
relation between the different dependent variables.
PROC MIXED in SAS/STATV R 14.1 was used for the ana-
lysis. Interaction effects between time and group for each
variable were used to test for differences in the mean
changes in scores for the meditation and psychosocial group.
Furthermore, given the groups differed in the distribution of
gender and year in school a sensitivity analysis was done to
see if adding gender and year in school as fixed effect cova-
riates changed conclusions in any substantive way.
Results
Table 1 gives demographic information on study partici-
pants. The median age was equivalent in both groups. The
mean for the psychosocial group was slightly higher due to
a few older students with outlying age. Given the skewness
and outliers in the age variable a Wilcoxon test was used to
test for the difference in the medians and there was no stat-
istically significant difference (w ¼ 5846.5, p ¼ 0.078). The
treatment group had a larger proportion of females than the
comparison group (p ¼ 0.0024, Fisher’s Exact Test (FET)),
and the distribution of year in school had observed differen-
ces in distribution as well, (p ¼ 0.0019, FET). There were no
statistically significant differences in religious affiliation
(p ¼ 0.35, FET) nor for race/ethnicity, (p ¼ 0.97, FET).
Boxplots and plots of the mean for each dependent vari-
able on the pre- and post-test for the meditation and psy-
chosocial groups are given in Figure 1 and numerical
summaries are given in Table 2. For easier comparison,
prior to creating the graphical displays the dependent varia-
bles were all rescaled to have a minimum score of 0 and a
maximum score of 100. Correlation between the dependent
variables at each time point for the treatment and compari-
son group are given in Table 3. Using a likelihood ratio test
there is evidence of a group difference in the variance/
covariance matrix between the groups, Examination of the
correlation matrix shows negative correlation between anx-
iety and both happiness, and mindfulness on the pretest in
both types of class, with correlations ranging from -0.25 to
-0.55. The strength of the linear relationship between the
pre- and post- test scores is smaller in the meditation class
group compared to the psychosocial group especially for the
mindfulness measure (r¼.38 meditation, r¼.79 psychosocial)
and to a lesser extent for state trait anxiety (r¼.39 for medi-
tation, and r¼.53 for psychosocial). This pattern of correla-
tions is consistent with what would be expected given
treatment effects from the meditation class.
To address research question 1, additional testing looked
at the differences between the pretest and the post-test on
each of the dependent variables for the meditation group
and the psychosocial group individually. For the meditation
group average differences were observed between pre- and
post- for mindfulness, t (71.3) ¼2.60, p ¼ 0.011, and for hap-
piness, t (73) ¼2.39, p ¼ 0.020, mean differences and 95%
confidence intervals are given in table 3. Results found a
slight average decline in mindfulness for the psychosocial
group, t (70.6) =-2.08, p ¼ 0.041.
Hypothesis testing was done to test research question 2,
whether the average change from pre- to post- differed for
the psychosocial group compared to the meditation group.
All testing was done within the context of the mixed model
by testing appropriate linear combinations of least squares
means. Results showed evidence of greater observed mean
increases for mindfulness for the meditation group com-
pared to the psycho-social group, t(113)¼3.28, p ¼ 0.0014
and evidence of different changes in average anxiety for the
meditation group compared to the psycho-social group,
t(137) ¼2.22, p ¼ 0.028. Note that the mean differences
between the meditation and comparison group were
 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH 497

Figure 1. Boxplots and line connected sample means for the Pre- and Post- test for the Meditation (n ¼ 74) and Psychosocial (n ¼ 73) group.
Note: All scores were rescaled to have a minimum possible score of 0 and a maximum possible score of 100 by subtracting off the minimum possible score, dividing
by the range and multiplying by 100. þ represents the mean for the meditation group and 䊊 represents the mean for the psychosocial group.

Table 2. Summary statistics for dependent variables and 95% confidence intervals for means.
Psychosocial (n ¼ 73) Meditation (n ¼ 74)
Mean SD 95% CI Mean SD 95% CI
The Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) Pre- 4.0 0.7 3.7, 4.5 3.5 0.8 3.2, 3.9
Post- 3.9 0.8 3.5, 4.3 3.8 0.7 3.5, 4.1
Difference 0.1
0.5 0.2, 0.01 0.3
0.9 0.1, 0.5
State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Pre- 33.2 7.3 30.8, 35.4 37.3 8.2 35.1, 39.6
Post- 34.7 8.7 32.2, 37.2 35.7 8.7 33.4, 38.0
Difference 1.6 7.9 0.3, 3.4 2.0 9.3 3.9, 0.6
Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) Pre- 5.4 0.9 4.9, 5.7 5.2 0.9 4.9, 5.5
Post- 5.4 0.9 4.9, 5.7 5.4 0.9 5.1, 5.7
Difference 0.0 0.5 0.1, 0.1 0.2
0.7 .03, 0.3
Note:
indicates differences statistically significant at the 0.05 level. SD ¼ standard deviation and CI ¼ Confidence intervals calculated within the context of the
mixed model.

Table 3. Pearson correlation matrix (r) at pretest and post-test.

Pretest Post-test
Meditation Class STAI SHS MAAS STAI SHS MAAS
Pretest
Anxiety(STAI) 1.00 0.39

0.25
0.39

0.29
0.04
Happiness(SHS) 0.39

1.00 0.23 0.27
0.74

0.02
Mindfulness(MAAS) 0.25
0.23 1.00 0.09 0.12 0.38


Post-test
Anxiety(STAI) 0.39

0.27
0.09 1.00 0.34

0.21
Happiness(SHS) 0.29
0.74

0.12 0.34

1.00 0.20
Mindfulness(MAAS) 0.04 0.02 0.38

0.21 0.20 1.00
Psychosocial Class
Pretest
Anxiety(STAI) 1.00 0.44

0.55

0.53

0.43

0.46


Happiness(SHS) 0.44

1.00 0.24
0.36

0.82

0.22
Mindfulness(MAAS) 0.55

0.24
1.00 0.37

0.23 0.79


Post-test
Anxiety(STAI) 0.53

0.36

0.37

1.00 0.39

0.41


Happiness(SHS) 0.43

0.82

0.23 0.39

1.00 0.17
Mindfulness(MAAS) 0.46

0.22 0.79

0.41

0.17 1.00

p < 0.05;

p < 0.01.

statistically significantly different despite the fact neither
mean difference was statistically different from zero, this is
because the observed mean difference for the meditation
group showed an average drop in anxiety (95% CI of -3.9 to
0.6) and the observed mean difference for the psychosocial
group showed an increase in anxiety (95% CI of -0.3 to 3.4)
over the course of the semester. There was not a statistically
significant difference in the mean change in subjective hap-
piness between the two groups, t(140)=-1.78, p ¼ 0.08.
Inclusion of gender and year in school effects for each
variable as fixed effect covariates in the mixed model made
no substantive changes to the results, and both effects were
498 C. CROWLEY ET AL.
not statistically significant in the context of the model
F(3,26)¼.03, p ¼ 0.97 for gender nested within variable, and
F(12,191)¼0.70, p ¼ 0.76 for year in school nested
within variable).
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine (a) whether col-
lege students enrolled in a 15-week meditation class would
exhibit increases in mindfulness, happiness, and/or decreases
in anxiety and (b) if exhibited changes would be larger
than those of a non-meditation psychosocial class compari-
son group.
At the end of the semester, students who took the medi-
tation course showed statistically significant increases in
mindfulness and happiness compared to the start of the
semester. Furthermore, a decrease in anxiety was observed
for the meditation group, and while the decrease was not
statistically significantly different than zero, it was statistic-
ally significantly different then the change in anxiety in the
psychosocial group because that group had increases in anx-
iety over the course of the semester. The meditation group
was also found to have larger increases in mindfulness than
the psychosocial group. These findings are consistent with
previous research which reported increases in mindfulness
and happiness with mindfulness-based intervention pro-
grams.19,23,31–34 An additional 2017 study also pointed to
both mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness medita-
tion as improving emotional wellbeing.35
As shown in this study, the 15-week length of time of a
college course allowed time to see the fruition of the medita-
tion practice in students. Previous studies suggested that a
program with formal meditations and informal practice may
be a more promising intervention for university student
stress than one with brief mindfulness exercises and infor-
mal practice.36,37 Another study comparing mindfulness
meditation and transcendental meditation found no differ-
ence in mindfulness and well-being between the two disci-
plines. Days per week spent on meditation were the only
multivariable predictor of both higher mindfulness and
lower perceived stress.38 In addition, one study showed the
length of meditation experience is related to higher levels of
mindfulness, which in turn is associated with improved
well-being.39
It is important to note that specific interventions or
forms of meditation may not be teaching one aspect of the
practice but several, such as cultivation of concentration and
mindfulness, while developing compassion, loving kindness
and wisdom. Mindfulness meditation and concentration
practices are not separate experiences but part of a single
whole.26 Therefore, the results of the meditation experience
cannot be measured in a singular fashion. It is difficult to
separate out these different components and practices when
trying to measure treatment effects.40
While definite cause and effect relationships could not be
established, this research provided evidence that a medita-
tion course is associated with improvements in mindfulness
and increased happiness for students and that on average
students in a meditation course showed larger increases in
mindfulness and larger decreases in anxiety compared to
students in a psychosocial course. These findings contrib-
uted to the research record on the impact of meditation in
college students.
Limitations
Although courses for both groups were in the same depart-
ment and listed under the broad umbrella of wellness, stu-
dents self-selected into the two courses and students in the
meditation course had a higher proportion of females and
underclassmen. The meditation students had higher mean
anxiety and lower reported mindfulness at the start of the
semester. This suggested that students who perceived them-
selves as more anxious and less mindful were more likely to
self-select into the meditation course.
Another potential limitation could be that when a treat-
ment group is more extreme on a pretest measure, observed
decreases could potentially be the result of regression toward
the mean. There does not seem to be evidence that is the
case for observed differences in mindfulness as there was a
difference in correlation between the two groups and the
range on the pretest for the two groups was similar (see
Figure 1). For the anxiety measure the results were less clear
as the differences in correlation between the two groups was
smaller and the drop in anxiety from pre- to post- for the
meditation group was not statistically significant.
Furthermore, this study relied entirely on self-reported
questionnaires and did not include behavioral or physio-
logical measures of the impact of meditation. There also
may have been demand characteristics playing a role for stu-
dents in the meditation course. Although students were reas-
sured that these questionnaires would not influence their
grade, the participant’s expectation that he or she may
somehow be evaluated given the purpose of the meditation
course as well as the questionnaires was fairly transparent.
Other limitations were that the study took place at one col-
lege and students were primarily white upper classmen and
the teacher for each course was confounded with the course
type. Given these limitations it is not possible to make
causal claims based on this research. However, the observed
differences can give insight into the association between tak-
ing a meditation class and self-reported mindfulness, anxiety
and happiness in a realistic setting, allow for the exploration
of possible benefits of meditation on student wellness and
guide future research.
Conclusions
The response of college students to meditation is targeted
and this work contributed empirical data on the association
of early meditation training and the well-being of students.
This study provided evidence of an increase in average mind-
fulness and happiness in students who self-selected into a
meditation course. Furthermore, the change in anxiety was
different between the meditation and the psychosocial group,

anxiety decreased in the meditation group and increased
slightly in the psychosocial group.
Future research is still needed to better understand what
factors contribute to the overall effectiveness of a meditation
programs. More studies with diverse populations and larger
sample sizes are needed. It would also be beneficial to con-
duct multi-institutional studies with multiple teachers and
curriculums to better determine which meditation curricu-
lum maximize benefits to students.
As continued research provides evidence for positive
results in reference to the outcomes of meditation, univer-
sities will need to find ways to incorporate meditation into
their work with students. The findings in this study com-
bined with supporting studies and literature can be used in
a variety of ways to encourage positive coping skills in stu-
dents. More research would be beneficial in continuing to
explore and measure the impact of meditation practices on
the well-being in students.
Conflict of interest disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The
authors confirm that the research presented in this article
met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal
requirements, of the United States of America and received
approval from the Institutional Review Board of Grand
Valley State University.
Funding
No funding was used to support this research and/or the
preparation of the manuscript.
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