Measuring Well-Being in School and University: Approaches and Challenges

Abstract

Measurement of students’ well-being has become a significant issue as the paradigm of education outcomes has switched from just academic achievement to a holistic personal development. Nowadays different approaches to assess and to describe well-being in different age groups and contexts exist. All of them have some strengths and limitations that will be discussed in the following chapter. There are some major challenges that researchers and practitioners are facing: the amount of information that could be provided by existing instruments, the possibility to compare results in well-being dynamics, and the ways of presenting results to the participants and institutions for practice improvement. Addressing these approaches and challenges, we are going to discuss international research and practices as well as our own experience of well-being large-scale assessment. Some decisions for research and practice will be provided.

1. Introduction

Studies of subjective well-being of students are becoming in great demand from different parties of the educational process. This makes the question of its correct measurement especially relevant. In this chapter, we aim to describe the different types of instruments that are used to measure students’ well-being. We will also address the topic of feedback and give recommendations for choosing an instrument. In order to do this, we first need to discuss how the term “well-being” is used and what definition we will use in the context of our chapter. The brief review about what is already known about the students’ well-being will be presented.

1.1 Definitions of subjective well-being

Nowadays a lot of policymakers and researchers focus on the topic of well-being. It is widely studied within various scientific fields—psychology, sociology, economics, education, and others. That is why there is some misunderstanding and sometimes misuse of the term due to transferring from one scientific field to another without preserving the original meaning. It led to the situation where several terms can be used to describe well-being, namely: well-being, subjective well-being, psychological well-being, happiness, mental health, quality of life, and others.

To systematize ideas about well-being, the objective and subjective well-being can be distinguished. In this case, objective well-being will mean indicators of the quality of life, such as income, level of education, health, and others. Usually, these aspects of well-being are in the focus of economics and sociology. However, over time, the concept of quality of life began to acquire an increasingly subjective color, especially at an individual level, including such indicators as mental and physical health based on the results of self-reports [1]. Gradually, the focus of the researchers shifted to the person and his or her perception of him(her)self.

The concept of mental health is more often used in health psychology in monitoring studies that aim to highlight health risks. Usually, to measure mental health, the depression and anxiety scales are used. However, characteristics of relationships with others and general life satisfaction are often added to the description of mental health. Despite similar indicators, mental health cannot be attributed to subjective well-being, since mental health focuses more on risks and factors of “ill-being,” while subjective well-being is rather opposed to negative experiences and affect. When studying subjective well-being, the main emphasis is made on evaluating subjective experiences, a global assessment of one’s life as a whole or in a specific context (for example, work, school, etc.).

In the second half of the twentieth century, researchers began to discuss the concept of happiness. Within the framework of positive psychology happiness is not only about overcoming the deficits that person has, but an independent state with its own factors [2]. Terms happiness and well-being in some studies could be used as synonyms, yet well-being is a broader conсept [3]. Happiness is a subjective state of the most pronounced positive emotions [4]. In this understanding, happiness is just the highest level of subjective well-being. The development of the research on happiness, in particular, the development of various measuring instruments led to the emergence of a three-component model of subjective well-being, which includes life satisfaction, positive and negative affect [5, 6, 7].

There are two main approaches to consider subjective well-being: hedonistic and eudemonistic. In the framework of the eudemonistic approach, well-being is considered from the standpoint of the completeness of self-realization. Within the framework of the eudemonistic approach, the Ryff model of psychological well-being [8] has received the most widespread use. Psychological well-being is described in terms of aspects of positive functioning such as purposeful engagement in life, realization of personal talents and capacities, and enlightened self-knowledge [9]. Psychological well-being includes the following components: autonomy, self-acceptance, purpose in life, environmental mastery, positive relationships, and personal growth. However, the concept of "psychological well-being" is often used in a broader context, for example, to describe mental health, satisfaction, general emotional state, essentially making it synonymous with subjective well-being [10].

The hedonistic approach considers subjective well-being as the individual’s subjective belief that his life is pleasant and good [11]. In this chapter, we will follow this approach of subjective well-being, since it has a lot of empirical evidence. Based on this model, a large number of instruments and indices have been developed. Traditionally, within the model of subjective well-being in the hedonistic approach, there are cognitive and emotional components: life satisfaction, positive and negative affect [5, 6, 7].

Thus, subjective well-being is the broadest concept that somehow combines all the aspects discussed above and implies some subjective experience and assessment by the individual him(her)self. In order to provide a broader perspective, we will consider the dimension not only of happiness, but also in a wider sense of subjective well-being.

1.2 Subjective well-being and achievements

Today, a rare international study both aimed at adults (European Value Survey) and children (the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, HSBC; Program for International Students Assessment, PISA; Survey on Social and Emotional Skills, SSES) does not include an assessment of subjective well-being. It finally fixes this concept on the research agenda.

Initially, research on subjective well-being focused mainly on adults, and as a result, we know quite a lot about the subjective well-being characteristics for the adult population. For example, there is evidence about relationships between subjective well-being and various life outcomes, such as income and career achievement, health (including mental health), relationships with partners and friends [12, 13, 14].

The emergence of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale [15], designed to assess subjective well-being in various areas of life, has stimulated research into the domain of children and adolescents. For children an important area of research, by analogy with adults, has become the study of the relationships between subjective well-being and academic achievement of students. This reflects one of the approaches to understanding the role of well-being in education, when well-being is seen as a tool for achieving future results.

Studies on schoolchildren of different age groups show positive relationships between academic achievement and subjective well-being [16, 17, 18, 19, 20], but this relationship, although statistically significant, is not strong. Another study showed that students with very low levels of academic achievement show significantly lower levels of school satisfaction than their more successful peers, but found no difference in affect levels between them [21].

Some studies show an association between grades and subjective well-being but find no such association with standardized test scores [22]. This is probably due to the fact that the grades obtained in the class are more significant for the formation of the child’s ideas about him or herself, as well as his or her position in the class, than objective achievements measured by standardized tests, which aim to compare the results of the child with the corresponding population. At the same time, a standardized test is a more reliable indicator of a child’s real level of achievement, and therefore the question of the significance of a child’s real knowledge and skills for the formation of subjective well-being remains open. Kleinkorres and colleagues analyzed reciprocal relationships between students’ well-being and academic achievement in primary school and found a positive relationship between life satisfaction in grade 5 and achievement in grade 7, but a negative relationship with achievement in grade 9, indicating that the relationship between subjective well-being and academic achievement may be more complex [23].

Therefore, despite the fact that research has found a significant relationship between well-being and academic achievement, this relationship is rather weak, which actually speaks in favor of schools, as it shows that children in school can feel happy in many ways, regardless of their academic success.

Research in higher education often focuses on freshmen: students who have just made the transition from school to university [24, 25, 26]. Several factors that could decrease the level of subjective well-being among freshmen were highlighted in different studies. Those factors are increasing amount of academic workload, examinations (e.g. [27, 28, 29, 30]), new social and academic environment [31], the beginning of an independent life, and the need to organize and lead it [25]. For countries where higher education is paid, the need to pay for the education (which means financial support from the family or independent search for funds, including taking loans) also affects subjective well-being of a student at the start of their learning and could be a strong stress factor that can reduce it [24]. Researchers describe the factors that lead to decline in subjective well-being of students in the context of adaptation and their future academic achievements: studies showed that students who successfully adapt to the new social and academic environments achieve better results and are more likely to receive the desired degree. In the same study, it was found that 75% of dropouts attributed their problems to unsuccessful adaptation during their first year [32].

In the later stages of higher education, the subjective well-being of students is mainly considered as the absence of negative characteristics, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, sleep disorders, problems with social adaptation, etc. [33, 34, 35, 36, 37]. Questions about subjective perception of quality of life, satisfaction with social relationships, etc., are usually added to such sociological measurements, but they play a role of only supplementing information about health and awareness of a healthy lifestyle [38]. However, some researchers still use a hedonistic approach and identify positive factors associated with successful adaptation and further study of a student at a university [24, 39]. Studies of university and college students still are more focused on identifying negative factors that could threaten subjective well-being: both academic stress and the negative behavior of the students themselves. In higher education research, to a lesser extent, there are studies related to positive factors that contribute to the increase in subjective well-being [24].

In education today, we can see a paradigm shift where personal development and well-being are becoming as important indicators of school performance as academic achievement and student well-being are gradually becoming crucial in its own right [40]. In this regard, there is a growing body of research that focuses on understanding what factors within education will contribute to higher levels of students’ subjective well-being. One such factor that can be a resource for subjective well-being is the development of social and emotional skills. Studies of the effectiveness of various social and emotional learning (SEL) programs indicate consistent improvements in subjective well-being over the course of the programs [41]. Moreover, for the first time in the line of large-scale assessment in education organized by OECD, a study appeared entirely devoted to the social and emotional skills of students, which, among other things, included a section on subjective well-being [42].

2. Measurement of subjective well-being in children and adolescents

2.1 Age dynamic of subjective well-being

Research about adult well-being and the availability of measurement instruments that were rapidly becoming widely used was also stimulating interest in the study of well-being in children and adolescents. In 1991, by analogy with the Life Satisfaction Scale by Diener [43], the first questionnaire for assessing overall life satisfaction was created specifically for children and adolescents (the instrument is supposed to be used for children from 8 years old and older) [44]; Student’s life Satisfaction Scale. A little later, in 1994, Huebner introduced another instrument, the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale, which assesses satisfaction with various areas of a child’s life: family, friends, self, school, and living environment. Although the measurement for adolescents already existed (e.g. Perceived Life Satisfaction Scale; [45]), it was the Huebner scales that caused the rapid increase in the number of well-being research in these age groups and continue to be one of the most popular measurement tools so far.

Studies of subjective well-being dynamics showed that, in contrast with the level of adults’ subjective well-being that remains constant on the average point of 75 on a 100-point, according to Cummins research in Western cultures [46, 47], for children and adolescents there is a nonlinear distribution of the level of perception of their well-being over time. Research indicates that with the start of adolescence, the level of subjective well-being begins to decline, and this decline was recorded for samples from different countries [48, 49, 50, 51]. Furthermore, it was confirmed by data from an international study involving 15 countries [52, 53]. The results of cross-sectional studies are also supported by longitudinal data indicating a decline in well-being during the transition to adolescence [49, 54, 55]. Researchers attribute this decrease in the level of subjective well-being to developmental characteristics in adolescence, namely physiological, psychological, and social changes that occur at this age [50].

2.2 Subjective well-being for different gender

On the other hand, data are more controversial about differences in subjective well-being between boys and girls. Some studies showed a higher level of subjective well-being for boys [50, 56], and some showed a higher level of subjective well-being for girls [55, 56, 57]. In a study by Goldbeck and colleagues, girls showed a lower level of overall life satisfaction and satisfaction with their health, than boys [50]. Interestingly enough, gender differences begin to appear after the level of satisfaction begins to decline, and the decline for girls is more pronounced [54, 58]. In contrast, a longitudinal study in Algeria showed differences in favor of girls on scales of school satisfaction. In the same study, gender differences in the level of satisfaction with friends are not observed [57], despite the fact that they were recorded at the age of 8, when girls showed a higher level of satisfaction with their relationships with peers than boys [58]. Such inconsistent results might be caused by different environmental conditions that favor either boys or girls, or be related to study design, for example, the age of the children included in the sample, as some studies indicated a sharp decrease in the level of subjective well-being for girls particularly in adolescence while for boys the rate of decline in well-being is slower [54, 58].

Why is it necessary to talk about age dynamics and possible gender differences when we talk about measuring subjective well-being in children and adolescents? There are two main reasons for this.

First, measurement instrument developers and users need to be sure that the instrument is able to detect real differences and does not contain items or sentences that children of different sexes or ages, but with the same level of well-being, will interpret differently. To prove this, the differential item functioning test (DIF) should be made on the stage of psychometric analysis. Only after the DIF test the comparison study should be conducted [59]. For example, do the statements “I perform well at school” or “My friends treat me well” have the same meaning for primary and secondary school students? It can be assumed that performing well at school and relationships with friends will have a different manifestation for them and will appear in different sets of behavior.

Additionally, the potential presence of differences in interpretation of questionnaire items raises the question about inclusion of new items that covers specific context for each age group in cases where we aimed to measure not global satisfaction but satisfaction in a specific domain.

Thus, before we run a comparative study, the comparability of the construct as well as the analysis of individual items of the measurement instrument should be made in order to justify its validity in different cultural, age, and other groups of respondents (ref to adaptation requirements). This is one of the necessary requirements for the measurement instrument development, but rarely the detailed items’ analysis is provided in publications about development or adaptation of the instrument and its psychometric analysis.

3. Review of the existing instruments to measure subjective well-being

The instruments for measuring subjective well-being can roughly be divided into three categories: single-item measures, scales, and complex instruments. Examples of the most commonly used scales are shown in Table 1. Let’s consider each category of the instruments from the point of view of their applicability for different purposes.

Measurement instrument	Scales: N of items	Target audience	Author(s)
Life Satisfасtion Scale	Life satisfaction scale: 5 items; Total: 5 items	Adults	[43, 60]
Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)	Positive affect: 10; Negative affect: 10; Total: 20 items	Adults	[61]
Child version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-C)	Positive affect: 12; Negative affect: 15; Total: 27 items	Children*	[62]
Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale	Student life satisfaction scale: 9; Total: 9 items	Children*	[44]
Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS)	Satisfaction with family: 7; Satisfaction with friends: 9; Satisfaction with school: 8; Satisfaction with living environment: 9; Satisfaction with self: 7; Total: 40 items	Children*	[15, 63]
Brief Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS)	One item per domain: 6 items; Total: 6 items	Children*	[64]
Brief Adolescents’ Subjective Well-Being in School Scale (BASWBSS)	School satisfaction (different school domains): 8; Affect toward school: 2; Total: 10 items; General BASWBSS score is available	Children*	[65]
Personal Well-Being Index—School Children (PWI-SC)	Personal Well-Being: 7; Total: 7 items	Children*	[66]
Survey of subjective well-being in school (SSWBS)	Satisfaction with school: 8; Affect toward school: 3 Collaboration with classmates: 6; Hostility: 6; Subjective physical well-being: 2; General score of Subjective well-being in school is available	Children*	[67]

Table 1.

Different measures of subjective well-being.

*

Age 8 and older.

Single-item measures for measuring subjective well-being are often used in large monitoring studies where there is a need to evaluate a construct, but no opportunity to add the entire scales due to time and format constraints or the large number of different areas of life domains. Usually, these are monitoring studies aimed to assess other constructs than subjective well-being. For example, the PISA study, which focuses on 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and scientific knowledge, and skills to meet real-life challenges, now includes a measure of subjective well-being [68]. In 2015, students were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with life on a scale from 1 to 10. Already in the next 2018 PISA monitoring, an independent separate questionnaire was assigned to the topic of well-being, which was presented after the main survey by countries’ request. The questionnaire included information not only about satisfaction with various aspects of life, but also an assessment of one’s health, relationships with friends, etc.

Regarding the use of single-item measures, we would like to discuss a few points. On the one hand, the inclusion of just one question takes up very little space in the questionnaire and allows to cover more thematic blocks in one test. On the other hand, by using just several single-item measures, we receive less information about the construct of our interest. It may not be critical in studies where well-being is only one construct out of many and is used rather as a control variable, but it is fundamentally important if well-being is the focus of attention. When respondents answer only one question, we get a small variation in data. A small variation does not allow us to accurately differentiate respondents in terms of their subjective well-being, reduces the possibilities for using some statistical methods, and covers only a very narrow area of ​​the studying construct, thereby reducing the validity of our measurement. One way to solve this problem is by increasing the rating scale to 10 response categories. But in this case, another problem emerges—it is rather difficult for respondents, and especially for children and young adolescents, to evaluate their behavior, feelings, relationships on such a large scale, since there is no clear understanding of what each of the points means, which leads to different interpretations. In addition, there are doubts that the respondents distinguish each score and the distance between them, for example, is the subjective difference between points 6 and 7 the same as between 8 and 9.

It is also worth noting that individual questions for assessing subjective well-being are also common in studies of adults and higher education students. McDowell, in his review of subjective well-being assessment instrument for adults [69], lists four types of such questions:

• single-item measures with an instruction such as “Please indicate how you feel now – taking into account what has happened in the last year and what you expect in the near future …. How do you feel about __________? (your health, quality of life, etc.)”;

• graphic questions, where the respondent has to choose a picture with an emotional facial expression (“Face scale”) that most accurately reflects his/her level of well-being;

• another option for a graphical format is “Ladder scale” where the respondent should put a mark on a visual scale, where the top rung means “Best I could expect to have” and the bottom one is “Worst I could expect to have”;

• Summary self-rating question, such as “In general, would you say your health today is: excellent? very good? good? fair? poor?”.

McDowell notes that such questions are very attractive for large-scale assessments because they allow compactly measure of such a broad construct and also show a good level of validity, measured as correlation with longer scales of subjective well-being [69].

Another type of instrument that is most commonly used to measure subjective well-being is self-report scales. In terms of the time spent on developing such scales, data collection, and the accuracy of the information in the output, this is one of the most accessible and fastest measurement methods, which ensures its popularity in psychological research. Generally, rating or Likert scales are used as response categories for such scales [70]. These are the ordered elements that characterize the degree of agreement, correspondence, frequency, etc., among which the respondent must choose the one that characterizes his or her own assessment of a particular statement or question [71]. For example, the questionnaire may ask the respondent to evaluate a statement on a five-point Likert scale, where 1—completely disagree, and 5—completely agree. However, this method of evaluation also has a number of limitations: response styles (extreme style, tendency to agree), the assumption of the same interpretation of different response categories (it is assumed that the step between the options “strongly disagree” and “disagree” is understood by all respondents in the same way), social desirability of answers, and others.

Multidimensional scales. In education, an integrated approach to assess the well-being of students is becoming increasingly relevant. For example, the OECD expanded the framework of well-being and proposed to consider well-being in educational context as a multidimensional construct that includes five domains: cognitive well-being, psychological well-being (includes life satisfaction), physical well-being, social well-being, material well-being [72]. This approach allows us to analyze the well-being of students from different angles and gives a more detailed feedback later, which is undoubtedly very important in education.

An example of such an integrated approach is the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) by Huebner [15], which is widely used in research. The MSLSS assesses student satisfaction across different domains: family, friends, school, living conditions, and self. Thus, MSLSS allows you to get a differentiated assessment, which means that you can characterize life satisfaction in more detail.

However, the multidimensional approach does not always mean that the questionnaire measures subjective well-being. Often this approach is used in order to measure additional characteristics related but separate from subjective well-being of the child. This is exactly what The Well-Being Questionnaire in PISA 2018 [72] looks like, where out of a large number of measured variables, only two scales are directly about well-being—Eudaemonia: meaning in life and subjective well-being: Positive affect.

Another example of this comprehensive approach is the KIDSCREEN project’ questionnaires [73]. As part of this project, a multidimensional measurement instrument was created aimed at assessing the health-related quality of life in children and adolescents aged 8–18. Well-being was considered here from different angles as a part of general health covering physical, emotional, mental, social, and behavioral components of well-being.

The main reason that determines whether to include only scales assessing subjective well-being or also some additional factors in the multidimensional questionnaire is the purpose for which this questionnaire is created. The choice of the scales themselves is also purpose driven. For example, in the “Children’s worlds project,” subjective well-being was assessed by the most commonly used instruments for assessing subjective well-being in children and adolescents [52], for example, Satisfaction With Life Scale [43], Personal Well-Being Index [66], Brief Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale [64]. This choice of instruments was determined by the purpose of the study, namely the comparison of the results both with previous studies and between measurements on different scales. This is why it should have been easy-to-adapt scales or the scales that had already been used in the countries participating in the study.

Another feature of such multidimensional questionnaires is that they hardly ever allow us to talk about the calculation of the overall indices of subjective well-being, based on its assessment in different contexts. This is partly due to the fact that it is not always theoretically justified and does not always add practical value, and partly because the authors do not always set themselves such a goal. Also it might be methodologically hard to build such a multidimensional model that will fit the data well enough.

The Survey of subjective well-being in school (SSWBS) [67] provides an overall measure of subjective well-being in school. The authors of the instrument initially aimed to assess the subjective well-being of students, taking into account the school context. According to the proposed theoretical model, the instrument evaluates five components: satisfaction with school, affect toward school, cooperation and hostility with classmates, and subjective physical well-being. The SSWBS includes preexisting scales that have been modified to fit the cultural and age context. However, even with a well-founded theoretical model, it is necessary to empirically substantiate the possibility of creating the general score of well-being in school; otherwise, we can only talk about the evaluation of separate components of the model. The study showed that the questionnaire allows us to calculate both individual scores on scales and the overall index of subjective well-being at school. Being able to choose how to present results can be very useful. For example, if we provide survey results to a school, we will be able to measure subjective well-being from different sides, which is more informative than the overall score. But for presenting the results of monitoring studies for policymakers, such an integrative indicator or general score may be more convenient.

To measure the well-being of students in universities or colleges, the scales developed for adult respondents are mainly used, without a separate focus on the educational process. These scales include the Public Health Surveillance Well-Being Scale (PHS-WS) [38], developed for the adult population, but also used for student research [74]. The PHS-WS assesses the subjective level of physical, social, and mental well-being. Another example is The Perceived Well-Being Scale [75]. It was originally developed for the elderly people and allowed a short (36 Likert-type items) assessment of a person’s physical and psychological well-being. This scale is also successfully used by researchers to assess the well-being of university students without any adaptation [74]. In higher education studies within the hedonistic approach, Satisfaction with Life Scale [43] is used, as well as The Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule – PANAS [61].

It is important to note that the questionnaires used to assess student well-being in universities and colleges are not modified to fit the educational context. Students are surveyed with the same instruments as any other adult cohort, although the inclusion of the specific nature of the learning situation at the university or college would most likely increase the validity of the results of such studies. However, scales for assessing specifically student well-being in higher education are still waiting to be created and tested.

4. Feedback about results of subjective well-being assessment

Next and a very important part of any assessment is the feedback on the results of the study. In education, any research, whether it is an international comparative study, a country study, or a study at school or class level, always has its own recipient of the results, and usually several stakeholders can be the recipient of feedback at once. Moreover, the results are used to make decisions at various levels. For example, the results of international comparative studies are usually received by policymakers of different levels and used to make decisions in the field of educational policy, but hardly ever are the results of these studies addressed to the teacher and even more so to the students themselves. At the same time, there are monitoring surveys that could provide the results available for the students themselves, their parents, teachers, and school administration. To whom the feedback will be presented is largely determined by the purpose of the study.

When it is clear who is the recipient of the results, the next question arises—how to make the feedback understandable, user-friendly, and useful. Often, more research is needed to develop such feedback, especially if it is aimed at students, parents, or teachers. If the way in which feedback is given is not clear (enough), the “best” case scenario will reflect the recipient simply ignoring the results. However, it might also be possible that the incorrect understanding of the results may be distorted and lead to erroneous interpretation and use.

In our own experience when developing feedback to primary school teachers on the results of subjective well-being monitoring in their classrooms, we also faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the monitoring design made it possible to provide feedback both at class level and at the level of individual student. Feedback was planned on various aspects of the student’s well-being at school and was accompanied by an interpretation of the results at each level of well-being (low, medium, high); hence, it was quite detailed. Special webinars were held with teachers to explain the work with the report on the monitoring results, before the feedback was sent to them. On the other hand, since we, as researchers, did not have any mechanisms to control its correct use after the feedback was provided, we decided not to provide individual feedback at the level of each student. We presented the results as the share of children in the class for each level of subjective well-being, thereby, of course, reducing the amount of useful information. Therefore, the risks of potential harm have been minimized. Later, when one of the goals of monitoring was to provide one overall measure of subjective well-being in school, we gave feedback to teachers on a per-child basis. In this case, the interpretation of the result was more general and the risk of its misuse was minimal.

When presenting a report on the results and adjusting it to the needs and preparation level of the addressee, we propose to use the following structure of the report.

• First, define the construct(s) being measured.

• Then provide the information about the sample. Depending on the addressee it might be more or less informative, for example, it is strange to describe the sample in the teachers’ report about his or her class (other than the number of children who participated in the study), but in reports for managers and policymakers, this could be an important piece of information.

• Next, present the results. It is always useful if reference criteria are provided: something you can compare the results with. In international comparative studies, this is usually the country’s average. But depending on the study and the availability of data, this can be a comparison with other schools in the region or city, and even a comparison with other classes in the school. In comparative studies of well-being, it is not usually used, but it is possible to compare an individual result with the results of representatives from the population.

• The last part of the results report is the interpretation. Its volume and content are determined by the purpose of the study and the addressee of the feedback.

5. Guidelines for subjective well-being measurement

In every study, a decision needs to be made on which measurement instrument will be used to measure subjective well-being. Given the increased interest in the study of subjective well-being in education, most likely the number of different instruments and questionnaires for well-being measurement will only increase in the near future. Further on we offer some steps that will help you to choose the most appropriate measurement instrument for your study.

Note that planning a study is a complicated task. If you feel either uncertain or unconfident, we would like to advise you to invite relevant experts to participate in the study to develop the study design, make psychometric analysis, and discuss the practical implementation.

Step 1. Purpose of the study and sample. At this step, it is important to clearly define the purpose of the study and the target sample. For example, the aim of the study might be to monitor the subjective well-being of primary students at school N in order to select classes for intervention programs. Already at this stage, we have to decide how detailed the information about the measured construct that we want to collect should be. Do we need a general index of subjective well-being? How many domains do we want to cover? Is the context important?

Step 2. The definition of the measured construct is a very important step, since it determines what we actually are about to measure. The result will be obtained in relation to this definition. One can focus only on satisfaction and affect, or one can include the measurement of purpose in life, as well as collect information about related constructs, for example, bullying.

Step 3. Choice of the measurement instrument. Based on the previous two steps, we choose the type of the instrument: single-item measures, scales, or multidimensional scales. At this stage, we analyze the quality of the available instruments in terms of its application to our purpose and target sample, its reliability and validity. Since most subjective well-being scales are used quite extensively, a large body of evidence has been accumulated about their reliability and validity (e.g., see review [76]). However, if you were to adapt the scale from another culture, this information may not be sufficient and a follow-up psychometric study will be necessary for the new adapted version. Also, papers about instrument’s quality hardly ever provide the information on DIF, which can be especially important when using the same instrument to compare children from different age cohorts or gender. In this case an additional DIF study is needed.

Step 4. Prepare the instrument for data collection. At this stage, informed consent should be collected in the form that is relevant to the laws of your country. Then the questionnaire should be prepared for the administration (including instructions and other procedures). Recently, the majority of such a study is administered in computer form. In this case the IT platform should be tested and the requirements of the participants’ devices should be made and checked.

When preparing the questionnaire, it is important to pay attention to several points. Firstly, how to familiarize your target audience with the chosen testing format? The less prepared the audience, the more attention should be paid to examples in instruction and trial tasks. Secondly, it is necessary to make sure that all instructions are clear and that the survey is intuitive and the form of its presentation should be practical. For example, in computer testing, it is desirable to avoid the need to scroll the page, especially for younger children, since this a) involves an additional skill, b) the continuation of the page may simply not be noticed. Also, if you use a scale, it’s a good idea to present it in a table, rather than having each statement individually evaluated, unless you have a special reason to do so. Presenting the scale as a table reduces the cognitive load compared with scoring each statement on the scale individually.

At this stage, some cognitive interviews might be conducted to ensure the clarity of the instructions, test form, and the sentences in the questionnaire itself.

Step 5. Data collection. At this step, it is important to ensure a standardized data collection procedure for the subsequent correct interpretation of the results. The personal information should be treated in a safe and legal (for your country) way.

Step 6. Data analysis. After data have been collected, we can start to analyze them in order to test research hypotheses. At the stage of data analysis, it is important to pay attention to the type of data that you have and use only appropriate statistical methods depending on the data type. In comparative studies, it is important to check the equivalence of construct, method, and items.

Step 7. Interpretation of results and feedback. Above, in section 4, we already described that this is one of the most delicate steps during the study. Treat the results with care. Sometimes the consultation of a practicing psychologist might be needed.

Those are general descriptions of the steps that should be taken to conduct a study and collect data about well-being for any age group and in any context. If you are interested in large-scale assessment for the adult population, you might also check the guidelines provided by OECD [77].

6. Conclusion

In modern education, the subjective well-being of students has become an important goal and is included in assessments in research of all kinds, from studies of relatively small groups of students in the classroom to international comparative studies. The choice of an assessment instrument is one of the significant stages of the study, which ensures the validity of the interpretation of the results. In our review, we distinguish three groups of instruments for measuring subjective well-being: single-item measures, scales, and multidimensional scales. The choice of the instrument for a particular study will be determined by its purpose, the amount and detail of information that is planned to be collected, as well as data on the validity and reliability of the instrument. An important part of the study of well-being in education is the preparation of feedback on the results of the study.

Acknowledgments

The chapter was prepared in the framework of a research grant funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant ID: 075-15-2022-325).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Thanks

Authors would like to thank Vincent Rodenburg for a keen eye for detail and for the interest to our manuscript.