Exploring the characteristics of student well-being and self-esteem among high school and university students

Abstract

The study of subjective well-being and self-esteem of adolescents and young adults is often discussed in psychological and educational research. Self-assessment and self-image are primarily formed in social environment; school environment is an important stage after the family. Student well-being refers to the subjective, emotional and cognitive evaluation of experiences at school, and most often described by the dominance of positive experiences and satisfaction with school performance. The emotional attitude towards school and school life is constantly changing from the beginning of schooling, which also influences the development of social relationships in addition to school performance. The level of self-esteem in adolescence is lower than in childhood, but it is rising again in young adulthood (Hascher, 2004, 2008; Pollard & Lee, 2002; Aszmann, 2003). The research questions of this study refer to the well-being and self-esteem of the 355 students involved. Among the participants of the research, the 9th grade pupils of secondary school (N=167) completed the Hungarian version of the questionnaire on school well-being (Hascher, 2004) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Sallay et al., 2014). For university students (N=188), only the answers to the questions of self-evaluation were analysed. According to the results, the questionnaires were reliable. In the case of self-evaluation, the factor analysis proved the repeatedly verified structure, and in the case of the adapted questionnaire, some factors were renamed due to the reorganization of the questionnaire items. Correlations have confirmed the coexistence of a higher level of self-esteem with positive school well-being.