The Relationship between Students’ Self-esteem, Schoolwork Difficulties and Subjective School Well-being in Finnish Upper-secondary Education

• Published in: International journal of educational research 2020, Vol.104, p.101688, Article 101688
• Main Authors: Holopainen, Leena, Waltzer, Katariina, Hoang, Nhi, Lappalainen, Kristiina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Adolescence; School-work difficulties; Self-esteem; Subjective school well-being
• ISSN: 0883-0355; 1873-538X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101688

•Subjective school well-being with three dimensions form one-factor model.•The results support both bottom-up and top-down theories of school well-being.•Schoolwork difficulties effect students’ self-esteem and school well-being.•The gender is related to self-esteem but not to school well-being.•Adolescent need educational but also psychological support by schools and families. This study seeks to explore the structure of subjective school well-being (SWB) and the relation between SWB, self-esteem and experienced schoolwork difficulties and some background variables of academically oriented students in their first year in upper-secondary education. First, the one-factor model in SWB fitted the data best. Second, the findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicated that SWB was affected by parents’ income, schoolwork difficulty and self-esteem. Third, self-esteem was influenced by gender and parents’ income, schoolwork difficulties and SWB. The results suggest that parents’ income has a stronger effect on self-esteem than well-being, and boys have higher self-esteem than girls. We argue that students’, especially girls’, self-esteem and SWB need to be strengthened through educational support and psychological guidance.