During the last couple of decades there has been an increase in mental illness among school-aged children and adolescents in Sweden. The Public Health Agency of Sweden (2018a) reports that the mental illness of adolescents in Sweden has increased since the mid 1980´s, with symptoms such as sleeping problems and depression, as well as psychosomatic problems such as headache and stomach ache. The decrease in the wellbeing of students can, according to The Public Health Agency of Sweden (2018b), partly be connected to school-related stress and partly to factors such as family and socioeconomic circumstances (Karvonen, Tokola, & Rimpel, 2017; Pollard & Lee, 2003). However, one central explanation brought forward was that the decrease in wellbeing is due to increasing demands on school results, more frequent testing and earlier grading (from Grade 6). According to the report, perceived stress related to schoolwork among 13-year olds has quadrupled from the previous measurement in 2010.
In Sweden, the assessment system has gone through major reforms since the beginning of the 1990s. In 2011 the requirements increased and today students need to have eight passing grades to be eligible for entering a vocational upper secondary educational program and 12 passing grades to be eligible to enter a theoretical upper secondary educational program. From 2011, the number of students not eligible to enter upper secondary education has increased. In 2016, 17.5% were not eligible to enter a theoretical program at upper secondary education due to failing grades (National Agency for Education, 2018). High-stakes summative assessments such as grades, seem to affect students´ achievement differently, and it has been found that low-achieving students when being graded at primary level have a worse grade development and graduate from upper secondary school to a lesser extent, compared to low-achieving students not being graded (Harlen & Deakin Crick, 2002; Klapp, Cliffordson & Gustafsson, 2014; Klapp, 2015, 2017). Summative assessments seem to have differential effects in that low-achieving students, in relation to high-achieving students, have difficulties in understanding grades, have a risk of developing negative learning strategies, need to work harder to get better results and higher grades, and have a higher risk of giving up (Harlen & Deakin Crick, 2002).
It has been suggested by research that the main sources of stressful phenomena for children and adolescents relate primarily to the school context and relationships. In the literature on well-being, researchers argue that wellbeing is a multidimensional construct defined by individual characteristics of an inherently positive nature (Pollard & Lee, 2003). The construct of wellbeing comprises five distinct domains: i.e. the physical, psychological, cognitive, social and economic domains. The social domain is about family and peer relations and support while the cognitive domain is about intellectual or school-related indicators of achievement. Indicators such as self-esteem and motivation reflect facets of the different domains of wellbeing and do not reflect wellbeing in its entirety.
Purpose
The overall purpose of the study is to investigate social and cognitive wellbeing for two birth cohorts of students born in 1998 and 2004. The assessment system changed profoundly for these two cohorts and by using the ETF data it is possible to investigate changes in social and cognitive wellbeing for these cohorts as well as reciprocal relations between educational achievement and wellbeing. Educational achievement are measured by National test result from 3th to 9th Grade (age 10-16) and Grade Point Average from 6th to 9th Grade (age 12-16). Another purpose is to investigate the differences between subgroups of students (gender, parents´ educational level) in the relation between wellbeing and academic achievement. Yet another purpose is to investigate these relations taking into account school level effects.
