Session Information
99 ERC SES 05 L, Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Well-being has been touted for many years as being a key factor in ensuring positive outcomes for students in schools across many parts of the world [1, 2]. Recently, some researchers have even proposed that low levels of well-being may be an underlying root cause of some of the social issues currently impacting our schools [3, 4]. However, while the concept is regularly discussed there is no widely accepted definition of well-being. McLeod and Wright [5] have even gone so far as to state that “calls to address wellbeing are so commonplace and widespread that they can mean both everything and nothing.” Some authors discuss well-being as synonymous with the concept of positive mental health, while others consider it from the perspective of social belonging, and still others consider well-being through the lens of a student’s readiness to learn [6, 7].
In the 1970s, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) played a pivotal role in highlighting the significance of positive well-being [8]. However, despite increased awareness, child and adolescent mental health disorders persist as a crucial public health concern [9]. Recognising the urgency of addressing adolescent well-being, governments have collectively acknowledged the immediate need for change within the community, particulalry within schools [10].
Although it is widely accepted that student well-being is a public issue, in Australia the federated nature of government places the onus on each individual state and territory to mandate their own policies in support of student well-being in schools. Consequently, each state continues to have a different approach to and understanding of well-being. Although significantly smaller, schools in Aotearoa, New Zealand also have an ambiguous understanding of student well-being driven by the lack of clear definition in the single curriculum framework.
The many different approaches and understandings of well-being hint towards its multi-dimensional nature. We therefore conceive of well-being as “a composite state of existence. Thus, a person who is well, will experience their being as a stable equilibrium of their physical, mental/emotional, and environmental dimensions. Factors that threaten any one or more of these three states of being may disrupt this equilibrium and result in unwell-being.” Our definition thus describes overall well-being as a holistic balance of the different underlying dimensions of physical (P), environmental (E), and mental/emotional (M) well-being. This multi-dimensional conceptual framework (which we will refer to as the PEM framework) is in keeping with other models of well-being such as te whare tapa whā [11] and PERMA+ [12].
Given the importance of well-being to student outcomes, we completed a scoping review to identify which factors best support student well-being in Australian and Aotearoa, New Zealand schools. This review explored a high-level understanding of the various approaches implemented in schools that have been reported to positively impact student well-being. We synthesised these approaches and three broad themes emerged: (1) the nature of student voice, (2) the nature of student perivallon (or physical environment), and (3) the nature of student relationships. For the sake of clarity, we adopted the term perivallon (literally, “that which surrounds”) to avoid conflating these approaches with a student’s environmental well-being as proposed in the PEM framework. We mapped these three themes on to our three PEM dimensions and we propose the PEM framework as a way of understanding holistic well-being. In the PEM framework we suggest that the approaches identified in the literature that align with each of the themes act to facilitate change in one or more of the PEM dimensions and hence impact a student’s overall well-being state.
Method
The completed scoping review adopted the PRISMA-ScR [13] checklist. To be considered for inclusion in the review, the sources needed to be (1) published and/or localized to Australia or Aotearoa, New Zealand, (2) focussed specifically on school-aged (ages 5-18 years old) students’ well-being, and (3) report strategies or findings that described impacts on student well-being. Sources could be journal articles, case studies, books, or government reports. All sources had to include a description of the measurement of well-being adopted and be published between 2010 and 2023. Journal articles needed to be peer reviewed and written in English. Case studies needed to have been conducted in either Australia or Aotearoa, New Zealand. Books needed to be written between 2010 and 2023 and be relevant to the Australian or Aotearoa, New Zealand context. Systematic reviews were considered for inclusion if they drew from studies conducted between 2010 and 2023. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies were included to ensure that a range of different measurement tools were captured. Any sources that did not meet the eligibility criteria or were incompatible with the conceptual framework for the study were excluded. Google Scholar was searched between the 13th and 23rd of January 2023 to identify relevant sources. Ten parallel searches were performed and the first 50 results from each search, sorted by relevance, were screened for inclusion based on title, keywords, and source type. Results meeting the inclusion criteria were exported into Endnote. Duplicated items were then removed by the authors and a second screening performed for relevance based on abstracts. A separate search for grey literature was conducted on the websites of the state and national departments of education with the aim to supplement the database with relevant legislation and policies. This resulted in 46 sources being considered for analysis. A data charting form was developed by the researchers to determine which variables would be extracted and updated iteratively. Using a spreadsheet, data were extracted according to article characteristics (country of study, year of study), approach to/understanding of well-being, methodology, and key findings. An attempt to chart demographic factors (e.g., location and socio-economic status) was made; however, the anonymity present in the sources made this impossible to achieve in a reliable manner. When systematic reviews were encountered an additional note of the number of studies included in that review that potentially met the inclusion criteria was made.
Expected Outcomes
The literature explored revealed several conceptions for well-being in use that combine to support our three-dimensional PEM framework. The impacts of various approaches on well-being reported in the research suggest a series of complex relationships between the PEM dimensions which we show using the themes. Changes in perivallon (e.g., significant changes to the classroom) might enable changes in a student’s physical well-being while also promoting mental/emotional well-being. Enhancing a student’s voice in the school environment promotes both their mental/emotional and their environmental well-being. The literature was clear that central to a student’s overall well-being is the need for quality relationships between students and their peers and/or their teachers. Enhancing relationships supports physical well-being, enables environmental well-being, and reinforces mental/emotional well-being Furthermore, the literature showed that the nature of an adolescent’s relationship with themselves was also highly significant, and that changes in these self-relationships have wide ranging impacts on all PEM dimensions of their well-being. Finally, the PEM framework acknowledges that each of the links is bi-directional. That is, a change in any dimension of well-being will have impacts on a student’s voice, their interaction with their perivallon, and their relationships with self and others. Much of the existing literature suggests many researchers focus on only one dimension of well-being, with little exploration of the interactions between dimensions or mediating factors. What becomes clear when considering the interacting factors in a framework such as this is the need for a holistic understanding of well-being. Researchers in this field therefore need to make a priority of the development of a multi-dimensional holistic measurement instrument tailored for student well-being that can be used regularly and with minimal impact on students. Such a measure would allow for richer understandings of well-being and greater knowledge of the interactions between dimensions to be explored.
References
1. Waters, L., A Review of School-Based Positive Psychology Interventions. The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 2011. 28(2): p. 75-90. 2. McBride, E., Half a billion dollar investment into student wellbeing. 2023. 3. Boyd, S., Assessing and building wellbeing. Set: Research Information for Teachers, 2019. 1(54): p. 54-58. 4. Grové, C. and S. Laletas, Promoting student wellbeing and mental health through social and emotional learning, in Inclusive Education for the 21st Century: Theory, Policy and Practice L.J. Graham, Editor. 2020, Routledge. p. 317 - 335. 5. McLeod, J. and K. Wright, Inventing Youth Wellbeing, in Rethinking Youth Wellbeing: Critical Perspectives, K. Wright and J. McLeod, Editors. 2015, Springer Singapore: Singapore. p. 1-10. 6. Banville, D., et al., Feeling refreshed: Aotearoa/New Zealand students' perspectives of the role of healthy behaviours in schools. European physical education review, 2017. 23(1): p. 41-59. 7. Aldridge, J.M. and K. McChesney, The relationships between school climate and adolescent mental health and wellbeing: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Educational Research, 2018. 88: p. 121-145. 8. Fleming, C. and M. Manning, Understanding wellbeing, in Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Wellbeing, C. Fleming, & Manning, M., Editor. 2019, Routledge. 9. Lawrence, D., et al., Key findings from the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 2016. 50(9): p. 876-886. 10. National Mental Health Commission, Monitoring mental health and suicide prevention reform: National report 2021. 2022. p. 83. 11. Durie, M., Whaiora: Māori Health Development. 2 ed. 1999, USA: Oxford University Press. 12. Seligman, M.E., Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. 2011: Simon and Schuster. 13. Tricco, A.C., et al., PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR): checklist and explanation. Annals of internal medicine, 2018. 169(7): p. 467-473.
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