Worldwide, the prevalence of issues compromising well-being and mental health among children and adolescents has grown significantly during the last decades. Results of the most recent 2017/18 study on school children’s health and health habits with 45 countries participating showed that in Sweden, children at an age of 11 years indicate lower life satisfaction compared with children in other European countries, but even at 13 and 15 years of age, the satisfaction of Swedish children is below average (Inchley et al., 2020). Saarni (1999) considered emotional competencies as a set of skills which can mitigate the negative effect of school-related stress that students report. Emotional and social skills have been associated with positive youth development in school, by promoting healthy lifestyle behaviours, and reducing the likelihood of depression, anxiety, conduct disorders, violence, bullying, conflict, and anger (Sancassiani et al. 2015).

Another area of importance for students´ well-being is leisure time activities. The importance of leisure for students’ well-being was evident in a study by Ratelle et al. (Ratelle et al., 2005), where it was shown that a conflict between school and leisure activities was associated with poorer academic outcomes (e.g., poor concentration at school, academic hopelessness, few intentions to pursue studies), which were further associated with higher levels of depression and low life satisfaction. Pointing in a similar direction, other research has shown that a higher time of engaging in screen-based sedentary behaviour was associated with more inattention problems, as well as with less psychological well-being, perceived quality of life, and self-esteem (Hoare et al., 2016).

In recent reviews and meta-analyses, both leisure-time physical activity and school sport were shown to have an inverse association with mental ill-health in children and adolescents; in other words, higher physical activity levels are commonly associated with lower mental health challenges (Biddle et al. 2019; Rodriguez-Ayllon et al., 2019). Focusing solely on the school environment, school-related physical activity interventions were shown to reduce anxiety, increase resilience, and improve well-being children and adolescents (Andermo et al., 2020).

Pollard and Lee (2003) attempted to remedy the inconsistency around the dimensionality of well-being in their systematic literature review. According to their compilation of the literature, general child well-being comprises five main dimensions: the psychological, cognitive, social, economic, and physical dimensions. In the present study, we focus on the psychological, cognitive, and social well-being dimensions of well-being. 

In accordance with Pollard and Lee (2003), the psychological well-being dimension should be related to children’s emotions and mental health, comprising levels of anxiety, distress, nervousness, stress, and self-esteem about school. Cognitive well-being is related to individuals’ perception of their capability to function in an intellectual context. Social well-being refers to having supportive and well-functioning social relationships: Individuals who feel that they can develop and maintain satisfying and healthy relationships with surrounding people tend to have high social well-being, while individuals who feel the opposite are more likely to experience social isolation (Pollard & Lee, 2003).

Purposes

The main aim of the present study is to examine the long-term changes in students´ well-being and the impact of leisure time activities on students´ well-being. Specific research questions:

How has students’ well-being changed over time in different education- and feedback systems over the last five decades?

How has students´ well-being changed over time regarding different subgroups, e.g., cognitive ability, gender, socioeconomic status, and leisure time activities?

Data from the Evaluation Through Follow-up (UGU) longitudinal infrastructure is used. The UGU database contain 10% national representative samples of students in 11 birth cohorts, born between 1948 to 2010. For all cohorts, questionnaires, cognitive tests, administrative and register information is gathered from 3rd Grade (age 10) to the end of upper secondary school (age 19). We will use data from UGU cohorts born in 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2004 (6th, 9th, and 12th grades). In the current study, the focus is on analysing long-term changes of students´ well-being and its relations to leisure time activities, by examining trends over time. Univariate statistics will be conducted and multi-group CFA to test measurement variance for all the items included in the constructs. However, these factors and constructs are overlapping to different degrees and these analyses are important to establish discriminant factors. Examples of questionnaire items to be used for creating factors reflecting well-being are “I worry about things that happen in school”, “I find it difficult to concentrate in school”, “I have friends I can be with in school”, and items for creating two factors reflecting leisure time activities are “I listen to music”; “I do sports and exercise”; and “I play digital games” (mean of hours per week). Then, longitudinal trend analyses will be conducted including covariates in terms of student background characteristics such as cognitive ability, gender, and socioeconomic status. Interactions between the variables will be analyzed and significant interactions will be included in the in-depth trend analyses.

The analyses are ongoing. In preliminary analyses comparing students from the two birth cohorts born 1998 and 2004 statistically significant cohort and gender differences were found, where cohort 2004 was disadvantaged in all three well-being dimensions, and girls were disadvantaged in psychological and social well-being. Possible causes of the decrease in well-being may be changes in the educational system, where the later cohort (2004) has experienced a stronger focus on results, grades, and higher eligibility requirements are required for proceeding to the next level in the educational system, compared to earlier cohorts. However, over the last five decades, several changes have made to the educational system, thus a long-term perspective will provide a more thorough picture of the trends in students´ school-related well-being and its relation to leisure time activities.

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