How Schools Affect Student Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Approach in 35 OECD Countries

Abstract

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.

Student Well-being Factors: A Multilevel Analysis of PISA 2015 International Data

“…PISA provides various measures in different dimensions of student well-being. Especially those related to cognitive well-being provide useful insights into differences between schools, but even in this case contribution of schools to student well-being is limited (Govorova et al, 2020). Thus, the results of this and other studies pose a question whether student well-being can be indeed shaped by education or school-level policy.…”

“…The purpose of our paper is to fill this gap by developing a model of student subjective well-being that separates relations at different levels and controls for a variety of personal and education-related factors. Similar approaches were applied to different aspects of student well-being and decomposition of results at the student and school level (Govorova et al, 2020). We develop a similar analysis for the subjective well-being measure, but we also add focus on between country comparisons.…”

Promoting Students’ Well-Being and Inclusion in Schools Through Digital Technologies: Perceptions of Students, Teachers, and School Leaders in Italy Expressed Through SELFIE Piloting Activities

“…it furthers extant research into student well-being and inclusion via digital technology use within the context of schools’ innovation vision and planning ( Carretero et al, 2017 ; Govorova et al, 2020 ). There is currently a lack of published research into these issues, so the work reported here presents fresh insights.…”

“…This is in line with recent empirical studies on well-being ( Lombardi et al, 2019 ) that emphasize the importance of integrating socio-emotional development in schools’ daily practice ( Burns and Gottschalk, 2019 ). Such type of school-level interventions, which have emerged to be more successful in some European countries including Italy ( Govorova et al, 2020 ), encompasses key components of well-being and inclusion through technologies such as relationships , school community , safety , individual learning needs , active learning , and collaboration , explored in the SELFIE self-reflection process ( Kampylis et al, 2016 , 2019 ). Similarly, research currently being performed in the EC ERASMUS+SHERPA project ( ErasmusPlus, 2020 ) includes the design and testing of a pedagogical innovation toolkit that complements and operationalizes schools’ SELFIE self-reflection on digital technology use.…”

“…In particular, relations with peers and educators often prove to be very strong indicators of other well-being aspects ( Suldo et al, 2009 ; Moore et al, 2017 ; Littlecott et al, 2018 ). Investigations that Govorova et al (2020) conducted in 35 countries within the OECD examined the range and impact on learner well-being of different factors present in learning settings; specifically, they examined measures educational institutions can take to improve learners’ perceived sense of well-being. They found that actually such measures had little substantial impact when viewed within the overall sample.…”