Answer to Question #280912 in Psychology for nim

Question

A psychologist decided to explore the link between a student’s academic performance and mental well-being. He found out that students who had greater mental wellbeing performed well academically

Answer 1

Depending on the experimental design, the psychologist might have valid results.

• Over the last decade, research in England has revealed continuous, considerable declines in children's well-being. While recent modifications to curriculum policy encouraging children's wellbeing have been implemented, one prominent element of the discourse surrounding the promotion of children's wellbeing is that wellbeing is seen as opposed to, or in conflict with, children's academic accomplishment. Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren recently proposed that there is an unavoidable 'trade-off' between children's 'wellbeing' and academic achievement.
• Using PISA 2012 data, Heller-Sahlgren contends that pupil happiness and high success do not go hand in hand, meaning that governments must choose which to prioritize. In this article, I address the theoretical assumptions that drive cross-national comparisons of children's well-being and examine data from psychology and education to determine if a trade-off is experimentally substantiated. I contend that, far from being mutually exclusive, children's well-being and achievement are positively related. This link, however, is not clear and necessitates thorough disentanglement of the hedonic and eudaimonic components of wellbeing.
• I highlight four major gaps in our current understanding of the wellbeing-achievement relationship: the need for (1) multidimensional conceptualization and measurement of wellbeing, (2) exploration of mediating mechanisms/constructs explaining the wellbeing-achievement relationship, (3) objective operationalization of achievement, and (4) investigation of developmental differences. Finally, I propose that when making policy recommendations, academics should avoid the "all or nothing" mindset that leads governments into erroneous dichotomies.