Students‘ academic well-being in Nordic schools

Abstract

Students’ learning is affected by multiple factors, and recent reviews have highlighted that teaching quality is more important for students’ learning than several other factors. As schools play an essential role in supporting students’ development of social and emotional skills, knowledge, and behaviours, academic well- being should be a focal point in students’ education. This study aims to identify observable characteristics of classroom practice that might enhance students’ perceptions of academic well-being and understand what characterises captivating teachers based on student reports. Data were collected by video recording lessons from 126 Nordic lower secondary classrooms (Grade 8) in language arts, social science education, and mathematics, and students from these classrooms completed the Tripod Student Perceptions Survey (Ferguson, 2012). We use the students’ answers, particularly for the factor Captivate, as a measure of students’ academic well-being and explore the bivariate associations between well-being and observed aspects of teaching. The findings suggest that students’ sense of academic well- being depends on their teacher’s ability to ensure an orderly classroom where time is spent on relevant learning activities and on their teacher’s propensity to engage in actions that directly help them understand “difficult stuff” through definitions of key academic concepts.