Date of Award

Summer 2026

Language

English

Embargo Period

3-20-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

Program

School Psychology

First Advisor

Benjamin Solomon

Committee Members

Benjamin Solomon, Andrew Petsche, Joshua Felver

Keywords

mindfulness, Soles of the Feet, overall engagement time, visual reminder, teacher prompting

Subject Categories

School Psychology

Abstract

Mindfulness is a practice that has existed for centuries (Felver et al., 2022) and has been adapted to address various aspects of human life. Among the various uses of mindfulness practices, they have been adapted for use in school settings to support the use of adaptive learning behaviors in the classroom. For the target behavior to change in the natural setting, the student receiving intervention must be able to generalize the learned mindfulness skills to the classroom. The current study aimed to determine whether participation in the Soles of the Feet mindfulness intervention increased students’ overall engagement time (OET) in the classroom, and whether programmed stimuli (i.e., visual reminder, teacher prompting) resulted in a generalized use of strategies and subsequent increases in OET. It was hypothesized that there would be a gradual increase in OET during intervention and immediate increases in OET during generalization. Visual and statistical analyses partially supported the hypothesis that there would be a gradual increase in OET during intervention. Similarly, analyses partially supported the hypothesis that OET would immediately increase during the generalization phase. Teacher prompting, in comparison to the visual stimuli, proved to be the more effective method for generalization programming. Limitations included the study being underpowered, observer logistics, schedule changes, and inconsistent participant performance.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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