The latest trends in research extend the focus of school effectiveness beyond students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills, looking at aspects such as well-being in the academic context. Although the concept of well-being itself has been defined and measured in various ways, neither its dimensions nor the relationships between the components have been clearly described. The aim of the present study was to analyse how the elements of well-being interact and determine how they are influenced by school factors. To do that, we conducted a network analysis based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 international assessment. Our results demonstrated that cognitive, psychological, and social well-being variables form a solid welfare construct in the educational context, where students’ resilience and fear of failure, along with their sense of belonging, play central roles. Although the influence of school factors on student well-being is generally low, teaching enthusiasm and support promote positive school climates which are, in turn, crucial in reducing bullying.

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A common approach for measuring the effectiveness of an education system or a school is the estimation of the impact that school interventions have on students' academic performance. However, the latest trends aim to extend the focus beyond students' acquisition of knowledge and skills, and to consider aspects such as well-being in the academic context. For this reason, the 2015 edition of the international assessment system Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) incorporated a new tool aimed at evaluating the socio-emotional variables related to the well-being of students. It is based on a definition focused on the five dimensions proposed in the PISA theoretical framework: cognitive, psychological, social, physical, and material. The main purpose of this study is to identify the well-being components that significantly affect student academic performance and to estimate the magnitude of school effects on the wellbeing of students in OECD countries, the school effect being understood as the ability of schools to increase subjective student well-being. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the responses of 248,620 students from 35 OECD countries to PISA 2015 questionnaires. Specifically, we considered non-cognitive variables in the questionnaires and student performance in science. The results indicated that the cognitive well-being dimension, composed of enjoyment of science, self-efficacy, and instrumental motivation, as well as test anxiety all had a consistent relationship with student performance across countries. In addition, the school effect, estimated through a two-level hierarchical linear model, in terms of student well-being was systematically low. While the school effect accounted for approximately 25% of the variance in the results for the cognitive dimension, only 5-9% of variance in well-being indicators was attributable to it. This suggests that the influence of school on student welfare is weak, and the effect is similar across countries. The present study contributes to the general discussion currently underway about the definition of well-being and the connection between well-being and achievement. The results highlighted two complementary concerns: there is a clear need to promote socioemotional education in schools, and it is important to develop a rigorous framework for well-being assessment. The implications of the results and proposals for future studies are discussed.

Despite the numerous definitions and dimensions proposed to explain the sense of humor and the variety of instruments developed for its assessment, little attention has been paid to its affective and attitudinal basis in the models developed so far. The long form of the trait version of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory (STCI-T; Ruch, Köhler, van Thriel, 1996) was developed using a facet approach to measure the temperamental basis of sense of humor using three theoretically-derived concepts: cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood. This paper presents the psychometric analysis of the Spanish long form of the trait version of the STCI-T. We assessed the dimensionality of the instrument, the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of its facets and scales and the relationships between STCI-T domains and other variables. We assessed four independent samples comprised of 1049 participants in total with ages ranging between 18 and 94 years. The psychometric characteristics appeared to be satisfactory and proved to be replicable. Moreover, relationships between (a) the temperamental basis of sense of humor and (b) personality and well-being were also replicated. Results provide validity evidence for using the Spanish version of the STCI-T to assess the temperamental basis of sense of humor in the Spanish population.