05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Poster
Unveiling Insights on Happiness, Joy, Mental Health, Resilience, and Gratitude through Voices of Adolescents in Slovenia and Austria
Igor Peras1, Manja Veldin1, Masa Vidmar1, Michaela Wright2, Franziska Reitegger2,3, Lea Hochgatterer3
1Educational Research Institute; 2Research Center for Inclusive Education, University of Graz; 3Institute of Education Research and Teacher Education, Inclusive Education Unit, University of Graz
Presenting Author: Peras, Igor
Mental health is an important aspect to consider in the overall wellbeing of an individual. Many mental health related concerns and illnesses (such as anxiety and depression) have their onset in adolescence with studies showing that having mental health problems before age 14 leads to increased risk of developing mental disorders in adulthood (Mulraney et al., 2021). Moreover, recent evidence points towards a mental health paradigm that focuses on fully established mental health disorders in adulthood while relatively neglecting prevention and early intervention efforts in youth (Uhlhaas et al., 2023). As adolescence can be a challenging time in human development with individuals beginning to attain the skills and competencies necessary for becoming productive adults (Barker, 2007), as well as it is a development period being of utmost importance for social and occupational adjustment (Thompson et al., 2020), it is essential to take care of mental health and mental health literacy (Nobre et al., 2021) of this population. Moreover, the affiliation adolescents currently have towards using digital devices and social media might put their mental health at risk even further but there is limited evidence (Girela-Serrano et al., 2022). Taking the above into consideration, with changes in adolescent mental health also reported during the COVID-19 pandemic (Panchal et al., 2023), there is a clear need for developing evidence-based digital interventions that are aimed at youth with the goal of preventing mental health concerns and equipping youth with the knowledge and skills necessary to provide help for themselves and/or their peers when encountering mental health challenges.
The above is outlined in the purpose of creating a digital program being developed and aimed at fostering the mental health and resilience of students aged 12 to 15 years old (within a project called me_HeLi-D). Even though there are some established digital programs for mental health of youth (e.g. Manicavasagar et al., 2014), more has to be done to provide universal prevention programs to youth. The involvement of the youth in the process of developing the program is one such example and the me_HeLi-D program aims to fill this gap.
The me_HeLi-D program is being designed as part of a participatory approach (Orlowski et al., 2015) in which students are seen as experts of their experience and help researchers with their feedback and preference in the development of the digital program. Using a participatory approach in development can increase the chances of acceptability and usability as students are included in the design process. This means that researchers do not just come up with ideas on what is best for students, but students take on the role of active participants in the design process, which increases the likelihood that the program will be used.
As part of the participatory approach in me_HeLi-D, participatory workshops were conducted in project partner schools. The workshops focused on the design and content elements of the digital program. In the following paper, we focus on student’s voices and perspectives on mental health. As mental health is not just the absence of mental illness, but also encourages aspects of mental wellbeing (i.e. the positive aspects of mental health, Tennant et al., 2007), such as happiness and joy, our aim is to incorporate these constructs within the digital program. Previous research has shown that mental health is related to happiness, joy, resilience, and gratitude (Bono et al., 2023; Schultze-Lutter et al., 2016).
In the present presentation we aim to answer the following research questions:
1) What are the students’ voices on happiness, joy, mental health, resilience, and gratitude? 2) How can these voices be incorporated into the me_HeLi-D program?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedParticipatory workshops were conducted with students in order to directly include them in the developmental process of the me_HeLi-D program. The workshops were conducted with students from Slovenia, Austria, and Poland and led by researchers with the help of teachers at each country’s participating partner school. In the present paper, we focus on the second set of participatory workshops conducted in December of 2023 in Slovenian and Austrian partner schools. These workshops focused on the aspects of the tool related to content in which students gave their opinions, views, ideas and suggestions on examples of activities that will be in the final version of the digital program. The workshops included 30 students from Slovenia and 33 from Austria aged between 12 and 15 years.
This presentation focuses on the “Recoding Lab” activity in which students were asked to give their view on concepts such as happiness, joy, gratitude, resilience, and on what mental health means to them. Students recorded their answers in pairs on portable audio recording devices in an interview style setting. This enabled students to use their words to describe important concepts related to their perceptions of mental health and wellbeing.
Concerning happiness, joy, and mental health. Students were asked to record their answers to the following items: “What makes you happy?”, “What brings you joy?”, and “What does mental health mean to you?”. Concerning, resilience and gratefulness, students were asked: “What is/are your source(s) of resilience?” and “What are you grateful for?”. For these two questions students then described photos they took in a past activity in which they had to take a picture of something that they are grateful for or is a source of resilience.
Audio transcripts of students’ answers were prepared in a spreadsheet. Data was analyzed using the thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For each question themes were developed to best describe the student responses. Data was analyzed by country (Slovenia, Austria) as well as pooled together. Spreadsheets were used to perform the thematic analysis.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsResults provide students’ views on happiness, joy, mental health, resilience and gratitude in Austria and Slovenia. Students explained the meaning of these concepts to them and application in their daily lives. This gives important insight on students' understanding of mental health and wellbeing as they were not provided with any definitions.
Not every student responded to each mental health related concept, however at least one concept was answered by all the students included in the results. Concerning joy, students gave answers such as: hanging out, getting good grades in school, listening to music, playing with the family dog etc. Concerning happiness, students gave answers such as: family and friends, playing football, playing games, music. Concerning mental health, students gave answers such as: when someone feels alright, being happy, inner wellbeing, feeling good, having a good time, learning to love and accept yourself. Concerning resilience, answers were: family, friends, playing sport, listening to music with headphones. Concerning gratitude, answers were focused around family, friends, living in a certain place. Results show that students gave similar answers to most questions showing the interplay of these concepts in their view of mental health. Frequency analysis as well as comparison between the two countries (similarities and differences) will also be discussed in order to put results in a European perspective.
Based on these results the me_HeLi-D program will be tailored to meet the needs of European students as the program is jointly prepared by partners in Slovenia, Austria, Poland, and Bulgaria. Careful consideration will be applied in terms of the language used in the program and in the case of examples that students can relate to based on their country context (i.e. what mental health means to students). Considerations for the me_HeLi-D program and practical applications from the students’ voices will be presented.
ReferencesBono, G., Duffy, T., & Merz, E. L. (2023). Gratitude and Adolescents’ Mental Health and Well-Being: Effects and Gender Differences for a Positive Social Media Intervention in High Schools. Education Sciences, 13(3), 320.
Girela-Serrano, B. M., Spiers, A. D. V., Ruotong, L., Gangadia, S., Toledano, M. B., & Di Simplicio, M. (2022). Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: A systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Mulraney, M., Coghill, D., Bishop, C., Mehmed, Y., Sciberras, E., Sawyer, M., Efron, D., & Hiscock, H. (2021). A systematic review of the persistence of childhood mental health problems into adulthood. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 129, 182–205.
Nobre, J., Oliveira, A. P., Monteiro, F., Sequeira, C., & Ferré-Grau, C. (2021). Promotion of Mental Health Literacy in Adolescents: A Scoping Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(18), 9500.
Orlowski, S. K., Lawn, S., Venning, A., Winsall, M., Jones, G. M., Wyld, K., Damarell, R. A., Antezana, G., Schrader, G., Smith, D., Collin, P., & Bidargaddi, N. (2015). Participatory Research as One Piece of the Puzzle: A Systematic Review of Consumer Involvement in Design of Technology-Based Youth Mental Health and Well-Being Interventions. JMIR Human Factors, 2(2), e12.
Panchal, U., Salazar De Pablo, G., Franco, M., Moreno, C., Parellada, M., Arango, C., & Fusar-Poli, P. (2023). The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on child and adolescent mental health: Systematic review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 32(7), 1151–1177.
Schultze-Lutter, F., Schimmelmann, B. G., & Schmidt, S. J. (2016). Resilience, risk, mental health and well-being: Associations and conceptual differences. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 25(5), 459–466.
Thompson, E. J., Richards, M., Ploubidis, G. B., Fonagy, P., & Patalay, P. (2020). Changes in the adult consequences of adolescent mental health: Findings from the 1958 and 1970 British birth cohorts [Preprint]. Epidemiology.
Uhlhaas, P. J., Davey, C. G., Mehta, U. M., Shah, J., Torous, J., Allen, N. B., Avenevoli, S., Bella-Awusah, T., Chanen, A., Chen, E. Y. H., Correll, C. U., Do, K. Q., Fisher, H. L., Frangou, S., Hickie, I. B., Keshavan, M. S., Konrad, K., Lee, F. S., Liu, C. H., … Wood, S. J. (2023). Towards a youth mental health paradigm: A perspective and roadmap. Molecular Psychiatry, 28(8), 3171–3181.
05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Poster
Well-being Indicators and PISA 2022 Mathematic Achievements Among Students with Migrant Background: the Cases of Slovenia, Estonia and Finland
Ana Mlekuž
Educational Research Institute, Slovenia
Presenting Author: Mlekuž, Ana
The way students adapt to the educational system becomes apparent by their performance, evaluated through both self-perception and grades (Goñi, Ros & Fernández-Lasarte, 2018). Several research (Jung & Zhang, 2016; Lauderdale & Heckman, 2017; Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2015) consistently indicate higher dropout risks for young immigrant students compared to native students (Motti-Stefanidi et al., 2015). Moreover, several PISA cycles reveal a significant academic performance gap between native and immigrant students in European countries (OECD, 2019 & 2023). Different factors such as early educational tracking, migrant students’ origin, destination country, and migrant group contribute to this inequality (Sporlein & Schlueter, 2018). Notably, disparities persist among first- and second-generation immigrant students, even when excluding socioeconomic variables (OECD, 2019 & 2023). School environments, practices, and resources which promote students’ well-being can help migrant students overcome achievement gaps (Agasisti et al., 2021). Relevant aspects include high-quality physical and technical resources, positive school and classroom climates, and extracurricular activities (Borman and Overman, 2004; Cheema and Kitsantas, 2014; Lavoven and Laaksonen, 2009; Blomfield and Barber, 2011).
This poster primarily focuses on exploring differences in mathematical achievement among native and migrant students and the predicting factors across five well-being domains, as defined by Kaya and Erdem (2021). Based on extensive literature review they defined five domains of well-being as:
- subjective well-being, associated with the hedonic perspective, evaluates individuals' overall assessments of life, including positive emotions, life satisfaction, and minimal negative feelings
- psychological well-being, based on Ryff's (Ryff & Keyes, 1995) model, includes sense of autonomy, growth, mastery, purpose, positive relations with others, and self-acceptance
- social well-being includes feelings of connection to a community and functioning in it and involves five dimensions: social integration, social acceptance, social contribution, social actualization, and social coherence
- cognitive well-being, a subjective component, involves life appraisals, including academic proficiency, collaboration, and problem-solving
- physical well-being considers health, exercise, and diet, often measured subjectively or objectively
This study specifically investigates these aspects among students with a migrant background and native students in Slovenia who are part of the PISA 2022 sample. Additionally, the poster conducts a comparative analysis between Slovenian data and data from two other EU countries, namely Finland and Estonia. The choice of these two countries stems from their performance in first-generation mathematics achievement in PISA, with Estonian first-generation migrant students demonstrating high achievements and Finnish first-generation migrant students exhibiting low achievements. Furthermore, the selection is also based on the Migrant Integration Policy Index assessment, indicating the responsiveness of the educational systems in these countries to the needs of immigrant children, with both Estonia and Finland representing highly responsive systems.
Using the PISA 2022 data, the poster initially examines differences in mathematical achievement as one of the indicators of the successful adaptation of immigrant students (both first- and second-generation). Subsequently, based on the premise that well-being is demonstrated to be linked to achievement (Berger et al., 2011; Gutman & Vorhaus, 2012; Novello et al., 1992) it analyses and compares factors across well-being domains, namely subjective, psychological, social, cognitive, and physical.
The overarching goal of the poster is to determine which well-being domains can predict the mathematical achievement of migrant students, providing guidelines to schools and policymakers. Additionally, the study's findings address issues of equal opportunities, academic performance of migrant students, and could contribute to overall well-being in the educational setting. This research has the potential to pinpoint more suitable interventions tailored to the needs of immigrant students.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedParticipants:
This study examines three representative samples of native and migrant students from Slovenia (Nfirst-generation = 378; Nsecond-generation = 252; Nnative = 5.866), Estonia (Nfirst-generation = 72; Nsecond-generation = 456; Nnative = 5.613) and Finland (Nfirst-generation = 1018; Nsecond-generation = 790; Nnative = 8.066) participating in the 2022 PISA. The study specifically focuses on a sample of 15-year-old students.
Instruments and included variables:
Every surveyed student completed a background questionnaire from which scales were derived.
The students were categorized based on their immigrant background, with first-generation immigrant students defined as foreign-born students with foreign-born parents, and second-generation immigrant students as those born in the destination country with foreign-born parents.
In order to calculate mathematics achievement PISA employed the plausible values (PVs) imputation technique, incorporating ten PVs per student in the international database.
The scales for individual domains of well-being according to Kaya and Erdem (2021) were attributed based on definitions as follows:
• subjective well-being: overall satisfaction with students’ life,
• psychological well-being: quality of student-teacher relationships,
• social well-being: sense for belonging to school,
• cognitive well-being: mathematics self-efficacy: Formal and applied mathematics,
• physical well-being: exercising or practising a sport before or after school.
Sampling and procedure:
A two-stage stratified sampling design was employed for this study. In the initial stage, schools were selected from the overall pool of institutions enrolling 15-year-olds. Subsequently, 42 students (or fewer) were sampled from each selected school in the second stage. These sampling methods were implemented to guarantee the representativeness of the test population. The students spent approximately 35 minutes responding to the student background questionnaire and approximately 2 hours (2 times 60 minutes) responding to the achievement tests.
Statistical analyses:
Firstly, descriptive statistics, specifically correlations, were employed to examine multicollinearity. Secondly, differences in mathematic achievements and well-being indicators among student groups in each country were computed. Finally, linear regression was utilized to identify the factors predicting the mathematic achievement within each student group in each country. The data were analysed using the IEA IDB Analyzer (Version 5.0) statistical program, chosen because of the two-stage sampling in the study, which incorporates IRT, individual student and sample weights.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results indicate significant differences in mathematical achievement among all three groups of students in Slovenia and Finland. In both countries, first-generation migrant students achieve the lowest scores, while native students achieve the highest. In Estonia, there is no statistically significant difference in mathematical achievement between first- and second-generation students; however, Estonian native students achieve significantly higher scores than both groups of migrant students.
Across all analysed countries and student groups, mathematics self-efficacy in formal and applied mathematics emerges as the strongest positive predictor of students' mathematical achievement. On the contrary, engaging in sports before or after school proves to be a negative predictor of mathematical achievement across selected countries for the majority of student groups, except for first-generation students from Slovenia and Estonia. The quality of student-teacher relationships serves as a positive and significant predictor of mathematical achievement solely for native students in all three selected countries. In cases where overall satisfaction with students' life was a significant predictor of mathematical achievement (native and first-generation students in Finland, native students in Slovenia), it was a negative one.
In conclusion, this study underscores the crucial role of mathematics self-efficacy in predicting the mathematical achievement of migrant students across various countries. Notably, positive and significant correlations exist between the quality of student-teacher relationships and the mathematical achievement of native students in the selected countries. These results have significant implications for education policy and practice. Policymakers should prioritize initiatives aimed at enhancing mathematics self-efficacy and fostering positive student-teacher relationships, particularly for migrant students. Tailored interventions should be developed to address the unique needs of this demographic, ensuring equal opportunities and improved academic outcomes.
References•Spörlein, C., & Schlueter, E. (2018). How education systems shape cross-national ethnic inequality in math competence scores: Moving beyond mean differences. PLoSOne, 13(3), Article e0193738. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193738.
•Borman, G. D., and L. T. Overman. 2004. “Academic Resilience in Mathematics among Poor and Minority Students.” The Elementary School Journal 104: 177–195.
•Cheema, Jehanzeb R., and Anastasia Kitsantas. 2014. “Influences of Disciplinary Classroom Climate on High School Student Self-efficacy and Mathematics: A Look at Gender and Racial-ethnic Differences.” International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 12: 1261–1279.
•Blomfield, C. J., and B. L. Barber. 2011. “Developmental Experiences During Extracurricular Activities and Australian Adolescents’ Self-concept: Particularly Important for Youth from Disadvantaged Schools.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 40 (5): 582–594.Lauderdale, M. K., & Heckman, S. J. (2017). Family background and higher education attainment among children of immigrants. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 38(3), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9537-4.
•Motti-Stefanidi, F., Masten, A., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2015). School engagement trajectories of immigrant youth: Risks and longitudinal interplay with academic success. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39(1), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025414533428.Goñi, E., Ros, I., & Fernández-Lasarte, O. (2018). Academic performance and school engagement among secondary school students in accordance with place of birth, gender and age. European Journal of Education and Psychology, 11(2), 93–105. https://doi.org/10.30552/ejep.v11i2.224.
•Jung, E., & Zhang, Y. (2016). Parental involvement, children’s aspirations, and achievement in new immigrant families. The Journal of Educational Research, 109(4), 333–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2014.959112.
•Berger, C., Alcalay, L., Torretti, A., and Milicic, N. (2011). Socio-emotional wellbeing and academic achievement: evidence from a multilevel approach. Psicol. Reflex. Crít. 24, 344–351. doi: 10.1590/s0102-79722011000200016
•Gutman, L. M., and Vorhaus, J. (2012). The Impact of Pupil Behaviour and Wellbeing on Educational Outcomes. Research report No. DFE-RR253. London: Department for Education.
•Kaya, M., & Erdem, C. (2021). Students’ well-being and academic achievement: A meta-analysis study. Child Indicators Research, 14(5), 1743-1767.
•MIPEX. (2019). Migrant Integration Policy Index 2020 – Education. Accessed at https://www.mipex.eu/education
•Novello, A. C., Degraw, C., and Kleinman, D. V. (1992). Healthy children ready to learn: an essential collaboration between health and education. Public Health Rep. 107, 3–15.
•OECD. (2021). Student questionnaire for PISA 2022 - Main survey version. Accessed at https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2022database/CY8_202111_QST_MS_STQ_CBA_NoNotes.pdf
•OECD. (forthcoming-a). Scaling procedures and construct validation of context questionnaire data. In OECD, PISA 2022 Technical Report. OECD Publishing. Accessed at https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/pisa2022technicalreport/PISA-2022-Technical-Report-Ch-19-PISA-Scaling-Procedures-Construct-Validation-Context-Questionnaire-Data.pdf
•OECD. (forthcoming-b). Sample design. In OECD, PISA 2022 Technical Report. OECD Publishing. Accessed at https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/pisa2022technicalreport/PISA-2022-Technical-Report-Ch-6-PISA-Sample-Design.pdf
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