This study explores the life purpose profiles and well-being at school of Finnish lower and upper secondary students. Finnish youth’s belief in the future is at its lowest in 30 years according to the most recent Youth Barometer (Happonen & Kiilakoski, 2025). Simultaneously, mental health problems have become a global concern (Golden et al., 2024). In order to address these developments, it is crucial to find ways to strengthen youth’s well-being. 

Purpose in life creates trust for the future and strengthens well-being. In this research, purpose in life is defined through three dimensions as per Damon et al.’s (2003) framework. It is a long-term and personally meaningful goal (meaningfulness), towards which one works or plans how to work for (goal orientation) and which is directed outside the self (beyond-the-self) (Damon et al., 2003). Based on manifestations of dimensions, it is possible to verify the developmental nature of purpose and identify different purpose profiles: purposeful, self-oriented, dreamers, dabblers, and disengaged (Damon, 2008; Moran, 2009). In the purposeful profile, life purposes contain all three dimensions while in the disengaged profile it is the opposite (Damon, 2008). In the three other profiles, one or more dimensions are present in the purpose indicating precursor forms for purpose. Previous research on Finnish lower secondary students found that the majority of the participants belonged to the purposeful profile whereas the number of students identified in the disengaged profile was the smallest (Viljanen & Kuusisto, 2025). There has not been much previous research on the life purposes of Finnish lower and upper secondary school students, which is why they were chosen as the target demographic in this research. 

Well-being at school is defined in this research through two concepts: study engagement and study burnout. Study engagement refers to absorption, dedication, and vigor for studying (Salmela-Aro & Upadyaya, 2012; Schaufeli et al., 2002). It has been shown to contribute to academic success as well as to overall well-being (Upadyaya & Salmela-Aro, 2013). Study burnout means exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of inadequacy towards studying (Salmela-Aro et al., 2009). Previous research has found that those experiencing study burnout often also experience increased feelings of loneliness (Salmela-Aro & Upadyaya, 2020) and symptoms of depression (Virtanen et al., 2018). Engagement and burnout are related to one another, but they are not considered completely correlated with each other (see Yli-Pietilä, 2025). 

This study explores Finnish youth purpose profiles and how these profiles are associated to their well-being at school, namely study engagement and study burnout.  

The participants (N=1009) are 13-20-year-old Finnish students from 16 different lower secondary schools (n=464) and three different upper secondary schools (n=545). The participating two general upper secondary schools both have specializations, one in art (n=304) and the other in civic subjects (n=187) while the third school is a vocational upper secondary school (n=54) with diverse degree options across different fields. Participation in the survey was voluntary. Parents of students under the age of 15 provided written consent for their child to participate in the survey while parents of 15-year-old or older students were informed about the research. Both schools and municipalities gave their permission for the research. All youth also gave their own consent for participation in the research. This research utilizes three different instruments: Claremont Purpose Scale (CPS) (Bronk et al., 2018), Study Engagement Scale (SES) (Schaufeli et al., 2002; Salmela-Aro & Upadyaya, 2012) and Study Burnout Scale (SBS) (Salmela-Aro et al., 2009). The Claremont Purpose Scale (CPS) (Bronk et al., 2018) investigates the three dimensions (meaningfulness, goal orientation and beyond-the-self) of Damon et al.’s (2003) definition through 12 different items. Study Engagement Scale (SEC) is based on Schaufeli et al.’s (2002) work of a modified Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Student (UWES-S). It was further developed by Salmela-Aro and Upadyaya (2012) to measure students’ energy, dedication, and absorption when studying. The scale consists of 9 items. Study Burnout Scale (SBS) consists of 7 items. The scale measures students’ feelings of exhaustion at school, cynicism toward school, and sense of inadequacy when studying (Salmela-Aro et al., 2009; Yli-Pietilä, 2025). The scales operated on a 5-point Likert scale. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted with Mplus Version 8.11 to identify purpose profiles. The 12 items of CPS were analyzed as separate items and not as sum variables (see Malin, 2022; Viljanen & Kuusisto, 2025). Associations of the purpose profiles with study engagement and study burnout were investigated with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Four purpose profiles were identified: self-oriented (n=356, 35%), purposeful (n=305, 30%), dreamers (n=193, 19%) and disengaged (n=155, 15%). Majority of the lower secondary and vocational students were self-oriented (n lower=209, 45%; n vocational=21, 39%) followed by purposeful, disengaged and dreamer profiles. Instead, in the art-focused institution, the largest group was dreamers (n=104, 34%) followed by purposeful, self-oriented and disengaged. In the civic-focused institution, the majority were identified as purposeful (n=80, 43%) followed by self-oriented, dreamers, and disengaged. The results show that the number of students placed in the self-oriented profile decreases and beyond-the-self interest increases in upper secondary education. This is in line with previous studies (e.g., Moran, 2009). The means and standard deviations were identical in study engagement (M=2.71, SD =0.76) and study burnout (M=2.71, SD=0.76) indicating that, overall, the students felt similar levels of engagement and burnout. Study engagement was highest among the students in purposeful profile (M=3.16, SD=0.74) then dreamers, self-oriented and lastly disengaged. Profiles differed in study engagement statistically significantly F(3)=95.820, p< 0.001, η2=0.224, and Games-Howell post-hoc test in multiple comparisons showed that all profiles differed from each other (p<.05). Study burnout was highest among disengaged (M=3.10, SD=0.83), followed by dreamers, then self-oriented and lastly purposeful. The profiles differed statistically significantly F(3)=53.951, p<0.001, η2=0.139, and the Games-Howell post hoc test in multiple comparisons showed that this was the case between all profiles (p<0.05) except the disengaged and dreamers who did not differ statistically significantly from one another (p=0.919). This indicates that the beyond-the-self dimension alone without the other two dimensions does not shield from feelings of burnout. The results confirm previous studies’ results that purpose in life is connected to well-being (see e.g. Damon, 2008). Additionally, further research on life purposes of vocational upper secondary students is needed as the sample size in this study was quite small.

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