Children's and adolescents' wellbeing and academic attainment at school in England: a mixed multi-methods investigation
type: CreativeWork
description: National and international comparative research over the last decade documents a significant, sustained decline in children’s wellbeing in England. Schools have a powerful role to play not only in nurturing children’s wellbeing, but explicitly teaching them what it means to be well. Yet the potential of schools to cultivate wellbeing among their pupils is complicated by competing educational priorities; the most pervasive being schools’ accountability for children’s academic attainment. Some regard wellbeing as a priority in direct opposition to attainment, while others express a need to better understand the wellbeing-attainment relationship. This thesis presents six papers, each from different methodological perspectives, with the shared aim of investigating how children experience wellbeing at school, particularly in relation to their learning and attainment. The thesis achieves this through challenging taken-for-granted conceptualisations of wellbeing in a theoretical review (Paper 1), quantitative analysis of the association between children’s wellbeing and attainment, accounting for cooccurring motivational states (Papers 2 and 3), designing and piloting wellbeing curricula in schools (Paper 4), and qualitative analysis of children’s lived experiences of wellbeing at school (Papers 5 and 6). Paper 1 theoretically reviews the wellbeing-attainment relationship, arguing that, to advance understanding, conceptualisations of wellbeing must be expanded, moving beyond ‘happiness’ (hedonia) to fulfilment (eudaimonia). Further, antecedents of wellbeing from motivational psychology are underlined as important traits to include in analyses of wellbeing and attainment. Papers 2 and 3 examine the extent to which children’s (N= 942) and adolescents (N = 607) hedonic, eudaimonic, and overall wellbeing at school, together with motivational states, are significantly associated with their Maths and English attainment, respectively. Structural equation models revealed that the w…
abstract: National and international comparative research over the last decade documents a significant, sustained decline in children’s wellbeing in England. Schools have a powerful role to play not only in nurturing children’s wellbeing, but explicitly teaching them what it means to be well. Yet the potential of schools to cultivate wellbeing among their pupils is complicated by competing educational priorities; the most pervasive being schools’ accountability for children’s academic attainment. Some regard wellbeing as a priority in direct opposition to attainment, while others express a need to better understand the wellbeing-attainment relationship. This thesis presents six papers, each from different methodological perspectives, with the shared aim of investigating how children experience wellbeing at school, particularly in relation to their learning and attainment. The thesis achieves this through challenging taken-for-granted conceptualisations of wellbeing in a theoretical review (Paper 1), quantitative analysis of the association between children’s wellbeing and attainment, accounting for cooccurring motivational states (Papers 2 and 3), designing and piloting wellbeing curricula in schools (Paper 4), and qualitative analysis of children’s lived experiences of wellbeing at school (Papers 5 and 6). Paper 1 theoretically reviews the wellbeing-attainment relationship, arguing that, to advance understanding, conceptualisations of wellbeing must be expanded, moving beyond ‘happiness’ (hedonia) to fulfilment (eudaimonia). Further, antecedents of wellbeing from motivational psychology are underlined as important traits to include in analyses of wellbeing and attainment. Papers 2 and 3 examine the extent to which children’s (N= 942) and adolescents (N = 607) hedonic, eudaimonic, and overall wellbeing at school, together with motivational states, are significantly associated with their Maths and English attainment, respectively. Structural equation models revealed that the w…
author: Clarke, Tania
language: eng
keywords: attainment, eudaimonic wellbeing, health education, mental health, Positive Education, self-determination theory (SDT), wellbeing, whole-child education
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4f4e6df4-d13a-487e-a3c1-01261fc60a45/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2022-12-20
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:17Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.96954