The relationship of academic well-being and the academic performance of 1st Year Psychology students at Xavier University- Ateneo de Cagayan In a study conducted in 2019 which involved a teacher named Ms. Mahmud Yusr, she stated her perspective regarding the student’s well-being and reported it as something which is as important as academic success believing that students who are resilient and have a greater capacity for emotional intelligence, often perform better academically. In addition, according to Tuominen--Soini et. al. (2012), well-being is an important indicator for various educational outcomes and because the adolescents’ lives revolve mostly on their studies, it is reasonable to define well-being in the context of education hence, academic well-being.
In a literature review on the approaches to student well-being, they defined student well-being as “a sustainable state of positive mood and attitude, resilience, and satisfaction with self, relationships and experiences at school” (“Scoping study into approaches to student wellbeing”, 2009). Furthermore, Selligman, Gillham Reivich and Linkins (2009) claims that well being is an important concept in positive psychology and is needed to be seen as a core element of education. In basic terms, academic well-being refers to the students’ subjective well-being in terms of academics and is an important factor to consider in a school setting. In addition, subjective well-being includes four subscales namely academic satisfaction, academic efficacy, school connectedness, and college gratitude and can vary positively or negatively.
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A study conducted in 2010 on the psychological distress in university students which compares their sample data on the general population data has found that the prevalence of psychological distress in university students was significantly higher compared to the general population and the students’ psychological distress was linked with low academic achievement (Stallman, 2011). A study in the U.K reported that factors namely academic work, poor work-life balance, financial issues, and administration issues impact most on the well-being of university students (A higher degree of stress: Academic well-being, 2011). According to Huang, Siu’s (2011) dissertation, academic performance covers various sorts of measures including GPA, honors and ranks, retention, intention as well as the current cumulative grade point average of the students. Subjective well-being clearly varies across certain demographic and social factors but only a few are recognized as to how it varies to factors specific to a college setting, such as academic workload and competition (Hunts, J., Eisenberg, D., 2010).
In summary, as an integral part of the academic life of college students, academic well-being is associated with academic performance. Concerning the relationship between academic well-being and academic performance, the researchers hypothesized that there is a statistically significant relationship between academic well being and academic performance. The positive relationship between psychological well-being and academic performance can be clarified using the self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan (1985) stating that self-determination theory is the satisfaction of fundamental needs is the primary main impetus of human inspiration (Gräbel,2017).
This study was made in order to see the relationship between the two variables in a different country, a different university with diverse cultures and beliefs. Conducting this mini-research was necessary in order to help Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan have a better understanding of their own students.
Participant
This research includes participants who are currently first-year students taking up either Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts in Psychology; all of whom are currently enrolled at Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan. The total number of participants who responded was 89 students. The sampling procedure used in this study is the cluster random sampling, wherein the clusters or the blocks were picked randomly. In this case, sections that were randomly chosen were YA, YC, YD and XA and for each block, all students present were asked to answer the survey.
Measures
Academic Well-Being is assessed by the College Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (CSSWQ) catered to College students. According to Renshaw (2016), it is a 16-item 7-point Likert scale questionnaire measuring 4 scales of college well-being behaviors: a.) academic efficacy b.) academic satisfaction c.) school connectedness and d.) college gratitude however, for this study, we will be focusing on the overall college student subjective wellbeing composite scale which includes all the items in the questionnaire. In addition to that, it’s scale starts as 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = slightly disagree, 4 = neutral, 5 = slightly agree, 6 = agree, 7 = strongly agree. It will be scored by adding up all the participant’s answers and in this case the higher the score, the greater the level of the student’s subjective well being. A study was also made by Renshaw (2016), determining the psychometrics of the CSSWQ in which it’s sample are the current U.S. college students (N=401), its’ results stated that CSSWQ’s reliability analysis indicated that its scales had strong internal consistency with Cronbach’s α.80 and as for the validity, a concurrent validity analysis was used. The results stated that its subscales≥ have significant and positive relationships, it has a concentrated validity with a few areas of general prosperity and emotional well-being issues. Furthermore, this questionnaire is selected because our measure of well being is more on the academic aspects and it is catered to the general population of college students. In addition to that, it’s designed to be concise, and subjective that covers all the aspects of the positive psychology traits that represent the overall wellbeing of the college students. (Renshaw & Bolognino, 2014). Academic Performance is based on the latest cumulative QPI of the participants, the data was gathered through self-reporting by the participants.
Data Analysis
For this research, Microsoft Excel was the tool used for coding, encoding, and data cleaning. For the data analysis, the JAMOVI program was used; recoding was not necessary for this questionnaire according to Renshaw (2016). Moreover, for the data cleaning, answers with non-differentiation bias or straight-lining were excluded and questionnaires with unanswered items were filled by the average answer of that particular item. Descriptive statistics that were obtained included mean and standard deviation. After obtaining the statistics, the assumptions were met enough to conduct the parametric test. Thus, Pearson’s correlation was conducted to test the null hypothesis.
Result
After all the data gathering from all first-year psychology students, we obtained a total population of 93. However, after data cleaning answers with non-differentiation bias were excluded obtained a total population of 89. Further, referring to the table below, the participants have a high level of academic well-being with a score of 79.7 with a highest possible score of 103 and they performed very well on their academics obtaining a Q.P.I of 3.11 with a highest possible score for 4.00, wherein their Q.P.I is self-reported. For both variables; academic well-being and academic performance, the obtained standard deviation is close to the mean of the data set which implies that the data obtained does not change a lot. The effect size of 0.209 has a small strength of association. Thus, academic well-being and academic performance have a small association or relationship with each other. The small coefficient of determination suggests that its variation in academic wellbeing does not affect academic performance.
A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between academic well-being (M = 79.7, SD = 11.3) and academic performance (M = 3.11, SD = 0.305). There was a very weak, positive relationship between the two said variables, r = 0.209, n = 89, p ≤ .05. This test result suggests that the higher the level of academic well-being, the higher the academic performance.
Discussion
The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between academic well-being and academic performance of first-year students taking up either Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Prior research states that with a more significant level of well-being regarding Positive Youth Development (PYD) abilities, for the most part, announced more prominent self-improvement and accomplished a much better GPA following 3 years of college study (Yu, Shek, and Zhu). However, Stallman (2011) stated that lower academic achievement mirrors the students’ psychological distress
A correlation was revealed between psychology major students’ academic well-being and academic performance, which proved our hypothesis. The study agrees with the idea of Yu, Shek, and Zhu, where a higher level of academic well-being also means higher academic performance. The majority of psychology major students have a high level of academic well-being and also have a higher academic performance. We see no difficulty in handling both academic well-being and academic performance as we speak about the population of interest. Even this is a positive result since the psychology students can even make it to the Dean’s list. This proven correlation can be further explained by Deci and Ryan’s (1985) self-determination theory wherein satisfaction of fundamental needs is the primary main impetus of human inspiration (Gräbel,2017).
Nevertheless, there may be factors affecting the very weak, positive relationship and its small strength of association between the two variables. In addition, the relationship’s variation or changes is that small to consider not affecting the variables. Accordingly, it suggests that its variation in academic wellbeing does not affect academic performance. As cited by A higher degree of stress: Academic well-being (2011), the aspects of university life impact most on their well-being involved factors related to academic work; poor work-life balance; financial issues and administration issues such as correspondence, timetabling and rooming. With that being said, those factors may be taken into consideration when we speak of academic well-being not having any relationship academic performance.
Stallman (2011) mentioned earlier, students’ psychological distress was linked to disability and lower academic achievement which supports our null hypothesis. This study shows the association of both variables with each other which is integral in the academic journey of the psychology students. All these things will aid the students in various academic outcomes and allow the students, the school, and everyone involved to be aware that students' academic well-being directly affects their academic performance.
Conclusion
There is a correlation between academic well-being and academic performance among the first-year students taking up either Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. The researchers assessed the relationship between the two variables which resulted in a significant, positive, yet weak relationship between the two factors. Therefore, based on the results of our mini-research, the greater the academic well-being of the students, the higher their academic performance.
To better assess the correlation between the two factors, the researchers suggest and highly encourage a wider scope of academic well-being and its different underlying factors which may include students’ preferences and standards in terms of their satisfaction with their grades, their academic interest, and academic stress level. The researchers also recommend including factors for academic performance such as the variety of participants in different courses in comparison to the average academic performance in each course. Lastly, future researchers may include factors for the participants such as their age and gender. To further expand the research, other factors such as psychological well-being in terms of emotions, family status, and financial status may be included.
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