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The influence of psychological well-being on academic success

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Abstract

Aim

To investigate the influence of psychological well-being on academic success in school and to test for interaction effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and subjective well-being (SWB) on academic success.

Subject and methods

The analyzed data set contained information on 508 boys and girls in the sixth grade. The study had a cross-sectional design. The KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire, an instrument for assessment of health-related quality of life in children and adolescents, which contains scales such as “Psychological well-being” and “School environment”, was used in this study. The combined average grade (CAG) in German and mathematics served as the indicator of academic success. The statistical analyses were using multiple linear regressions.

Results

Our analysis revealed an unexpected negative effect of psychological well-being on the CAG, but also an indirect positive effect, which was detected on the School Environment scale. The two effects more or less cancelled each other out overall. No interaction with socioeconomic status could be detected.

Conclusion

The results of the present study are inconsistent and are only partly in conformity with the findings of previous empirical research on this topic, which rarely reported both negative and positive effects of well-being on academic success.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Christoph Bühler (Leibniz University Hanover) for continuously supporting and advising the research project. The authors would like to thank the initiators and organizers of the “fit for pisa” project and the participating children, parents and schools in Göttingen for their support. The study was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: grant no. 01EL0615).

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AQUA-Institute for Applied Quality Improvement and Research in Healthcare, Göttingen, Germany

    F. Rüppel

  2. Institute for Epidemiology, Social Medicine and Health Systems Research, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625, Hanover, Germany

    Sebastian Liersch & U. Walter

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  1. F. Rüppel
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  2. Sebastian Liersch
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  3. U. Walter
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Correspondence to Sebastian Liersch.

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Rüppel, F., Liersch, S. & Walter, U. The influence of psychological well-being on academic success. J Public Health 23, 15–24 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-015-0654-y

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