By Sara Williams
December 4, 2014
Updated:
September 10, 2023

Promoting Optimistic Thinking in YMCA After-School Students

About the UC study

The Dream Playbook was tested by the University of Cincinnati in a year-long study called “Promoting Optimistic Thinking in YMCA After-School Students” as part of community service and outreach program. We had a Capstone Course of psychology students help mentor YMCA after-school students on how to dream (goal setting). The UC mentors also did an assessment of the feasibility of whether this curriculum improved socio-emotional learning in the academic environment (optimistic thinking per the DESSA measure). Overall it was both an effective and fun year for both students and facilitators.

The following year a group of these UC students continued the project in an independent study and the results were published in the Pennsylvania State University Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning & Community-Based Research.

Evidence-Based Results

Tested in a 1-year university study

22% improvement in children's optimistic thinking. (A big improvement!)

22%

90% of kids looked forward to Dream It! Playbook sessions.

90%

97% of kids recommended the Dream It! Playbook.

95%

100% of kids reported thinking about their goals more often

100%

The Dream It Playbook is proven statistically significantly to improve optimistic thinking, grit (perseverance), hope and a growth mindset.

Passion Word Search and Thermometer Test Pages — Every session we would collect pages from the book to see how kids were interacting with the concepts and games. A lot of pages — over a hundred — just ended up in the recycle bin. Here's an example of page that worked well. Notice that this student measures her passion off the scale of the thermometer (actually, most kids did). And this student loved the word search, and judging by the answers it really helped them to put all these emotions into the context of powering a dream to make it real. Pictured above: Students participating in the Dream Playbook study. One is wearing the Talking Hat, and they are all taking a step of action to make their dreams real.

Benefits per the UC Study

The playbook had overwhelmingly positive feedback. Here are a few highlights from this year-long study in 2nd-8th grades:

100% of kids reported thinking about their goals more often with the Dream It! Playbook.

Research has demonstrated the benefits of children learning about dreaming. The book is based on educational, social-emotional, and cognitive development theories, and built on the backbone of our novel dream principles and original research. The games in Dream It! were tested in a university study* of the promotion of optimistic thinking in students in 2nd to 8th grade who worked on the book as a weekly class in an after-school program. Highlights from the results of the year-long study include:

Students who completed the Playbook increased in a measure of optimistic thinking by 29% in the first semester and 17% in the second semester.
After completing the Playbook, 100% of students reported that they were thinking more about their goals and future dreams. This led the researchers to conclude that the Playbook may be an effective tool to increase student achievement through increasing dreaming and goal setting.
Nearly 90% of children reported looking forward to their weekly Playbook session. This led the researchers to conclude that the Playbook may contribute to improved school attendance by providing many students with an exciting reason to go to school.
There were no differences in the positive influence of the Playbook by gender or grade
The influence of the Dream Playbook on optimistic thinking did not depend on the school.
The students who participated in this study are ethnically and socioeconomically diverse; this demonstrates the relevance and usefulness of the playbook for a diverse group of children.
More about working with groups

The study concluded that Dream It! is an effective, evidenced-based tool for teaching social-emotional skills and increasing optimistic thinking that is enjoyed by all students.

You should change the title of the book to: "Live the life YOU want to live, if YOU put your mind to it!"
Recommendation by a Child in the Research Study

Articles about our original research

So far, we have collaborated on 6 university-led research projects, each one using the scientific process and building on the methods of the previous studies. We have also held a lot of informal workshops at schools and non-profit organizations to test our material. And behind the scenes, we are doing ongoing research, literature reviews and consulting social-emotional professionals to make sure everything we do is evidence-based and peer-reviewed. See all our research projects below.

Dream It! Achieves a Research Publication Milestone

Great news!!! Today is an exciting day for the science of dreaming (goal setting, aspiration, passions). We are proud to announce that our latest dream research study has been published in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Child & Youth Care Forum.

Dream Workshop University of Cincinnati Facilitators

Impact and feasibility of the Dream Workshop

A summary of a research study conducted by the University of Cincinnati to test the efficacy of a Dream Workshop and whether it improved children’s self-confidence as measure of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).

Dream Team at Parker Woods Montessori Elementary. The authors and University of Cincinnati facilitators.

Improving social and emotional awareness using the Dream It! Playbook

Student’s using the workbook “Dream It!” had a scientifically proven, evidence-based improvement in optimistic thinking and perseverance (along with improvements in hope, growth-mindset and overall school climate) among elementary school students. Highlights from our most-important study to date, including lots of pictures and graphs.

Doctor Sara Williams at the American Psychological Association's annual conference

Improving Children’s Optimistic Thinking by Teaching them to Dream about Life Goals

We were honored to attend the American Psychological Associations 2018 annual conference to present the results of our study. This is a new analysis of our data that, essentially, says that young students perform better when they are taught the basics of socioemotional skills, like passion and goal setting, first before more academic subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.

The "How's it going" Dream Workshop station with facilitators and children.

The Dream Workshop Pilot Program

We tested the Dream Playbook in over a dozen schools. We called it our “Dream Workshop” but it was so much fun that the students called it “The Dream Club.”