Strengths Insights Newsletter

Strengths, Hope, and Achievement

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., is a senior scientist at Gallup and a leading researcher on hope. He is an architect of the Gallup Student Poll, a measure of hope, engagement, and wellbeing that taps into the hearts and minds of American public school students to determine what drives achievement. In this interview, he shares his insights on hope and strengths and why they matter to students and educators.

Strengths Insights: You've been studying hope and how it links to strengths development and academic success for many years. How do you define hope, and how does it connect to strengths?

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D.: A person who is hopeful can conceptualize goals, develop strategies to reach their goals, and initiate and sustain the motivations for using those strategies. Hopeful people have more positive than negative thoughts each day, and they set more -- and more challenging -- goals than people who are less hopeful.

Strengths development leads to hope, and developing strengths can produce significant increases in hope in high school freshmen and college students. These findings parallel discoveries that link strengths development to engagement. Hopeful students see the future as better than the present and believe they have the power to make it so; engaged students are actively involved in and enthusiastic about school.

Strengths Insights: Why should educators care if students are hopeful? Does hope link to key outcomes such as graduation rates or GPA?

Dr. Lopez: Hope has a substantial relationship to academic achievement. A six-year longitudinal study, for example, showed that the hope scores of entering college freshmen predicted better overall grade point averages, even after controlling for variance in entrance exam scores. Students with high hope also were more likely to graduate over this six-year period than students with low hope.

Strengths Insights: Does hope connect to important outcomes outside school as well, such as employment following graduation?

Dr. Lopez: Hope drives behaviors -- such as showing up, sustaining effort, increasing productivity, being healthy, boosting wellbeing, and living longer -- that make us productive and create a worthwhile life. A review of all available hope research from around the world reveals that there is 12% gain in academic performance, a 14% bump in workplace outcomes, and a 10% boost in happiness for hopeful people.

In part two of this interview, which will appear in February, Dr. Lopez will share strategies teachers can use to promote hope, engagement, and wellbeing among their students.

Mentoring and Advising Program

Strengths mentors and advisors understand and can explain the subtle, yet predictable link that exists between human behavior and human performance. They help others to understand and maximize the unique human potential that each person brings to their roles in school, in work, and in life. This practical session will deepen your understanding of strengths, prepare you to coach students, staff members, and faculty on their talents, and equip you to train, mentor, and coach other coaches.

Learn more or register

SUMMER CONFERENCE DATE CHANGE: The Strengths in Education summer conference will take place from July 25-27, 2012, at the Gallup Riverfront Campus in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark your calendar with the updated dates, and watch for details and registration information in an upcoming newsletter. We're looking forward to seeing you in Omaha in July.