Student Well-being: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract. Research on well-being in adults has developed quite rapidly in recent years, but not on research in child well-being particularly within school context. This article aimed to review: (a) the definition of student well-being and b) measurement of student well-being. The review involved articles published in 2007-2017. The conclusions of this literature review are (a) the definitions used to explain student well-being are based on several approaches, namely mental health, hedonistic and eudaimonic, (b) several aspects that construct the student well-being at school namely dominant positive emotions, school satisfaction, negative emotions, social relations and engagement to school. These findings can provide recommendations for measurement construction and school evaluation related to student well-being.


Introduction
Well-being 1 has been an exciting topic for research in the last decade. Most studies about well-being involve adults as participants in general life context. However, fewer studies involving children in a specific context such as school have been carried out (Ben-Arieh, 2005;Gadermann, Schonert-Reichl & Zumbo, 2010;Suldo & Huebner, 2004;Verkuyten & Thijs, 2002). Besides, previous studies did not differentiate the determinants of well-being in adults and children (Ben-Arieh, 2005;Huebner & Diener, 2008) whereas wellbeing plays a crucial role in childhood. Children with higher degree of well-being will be more cooperative, self-confident, creative, tolerant, and altruistic (Cohen & Pressman, 2006;Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). These characteristics will enable them to be more positive and selfconfident in dealing with the environment, and supporting their academic activities (Mashford-Scott, Church, & Tayler, 2012).
Well-being in the school context is an important indicator to reflect on students' development at school (Elmore, 2010;Huebner & Gilman, 2003;Liu, Tian, Huebner, Zheng, & Li, 2014;Tian, Du, & Huebner, 2015). Students with excellent well-being exhibit several characteristics, for instance: attachment with school, high academic achievements, and be healthier physically and mentally (Suldo, Riley, & Shaffer, 2006;Suldo & Shaffer, 2008). Further, Suldo & Shaffer (2008) suggested that students with high level of well-being show satisfaction towards school and higher quality of social relations.
Well-being has been defined differently in many fields. Therefore, many definitions, indicators, and measurements have been put into practice variably (Pollard & Lee, 2003). World Health Organization (2004) defined well-being as the mental health indicator shown by individual ability to cope with pressures in ordinary life, be productive, and be able to contribute to society. Well-being is not about the absence of illness, disorders, or disability. Instead, it is about how an individual enhances personal and communal capacity and enables them to pursue their objectives (Keyes, 2002). In later studies, well-being measurement includes positive attributes, such as potential, strength, and others, and it is not only about the absence of disorders and illnesses (Keyes & Annas, 2009). Within the school context, student well-being according to this perspective is related to how students can enhance their capability and function fully.
In positive psychology, hedonistic and eudaimonic are two perspectives used to discuss well-being. Hedonistic considers well-being as similar to happiness and joy (Ryan & Deci, 2001). It focuses on the positive mental condition determined subjectively. In this approach, well-being comprises three parts: life satisfaction, the domination of positive emotion, and the absence/lack of negative emotion (Diener, Emmons, & Griffin, 1985). While, eudaimonic perspective explains that psychological well-being will be achieved when an individual realizes his/her potential and functions optimally (Ryan & Deci, 2001). These different perspectives also cause differentiation in defining child wellbeing, especially in school context.
About the measurement, studies have revealed that student well-being is a multidimensional construct. However, several studies particularly about mea-surement of student well-being, only focus on the cognitive component which is school satisfaction, such as Student Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner, 1991;Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner, 1994;Malmsjo, Scott, & Kimberly, 2012) and Brief Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale (Seligson, Huebner, & Valois, 2003). School satisfaction is the student's evaluation of their life at school. Other research measure several components of well-being (in addition to cognitive) i.e., dominant positive emotion, the lack/absence of negative emotion, and school satisfaction in Brief Adolescents' Subjective Well-Being in School Scale (Tian, Wang, & Huebner, 2015) and for research in Indonesian context, Student Well-Being Scale (Kurniastuti & Azwar, 2014).
The above explanations conclude three critical points. First, there is no agreement among experts about the definition of well-being as various definitions and approaches used today. Second, only few studies had been done to discuss wellbeing in specific contexts such as school. Third, previous scales used to measure student well-being did not measure the construct holistically. For that, this article aimed to conduct a systematic literature study to a) compile the definitions of student well-being in previous studies, b) understand how the instrument of student well-being is developed and what are the domains/aspects of the construct.

Discussion
The data extraction was done through online journal database at lib.ugm.ac.id using several keywords: student, wellbeing/wellbeing, school/in school. The inclusion criteria of this search were: (a) studies carried out during 2000-2017; (b) studies utilizing scales that explain the aspects/dimensions of student wellbeing. The exclusion criteria are: (a) studies with participants other than primary school to high school students, and (b) studies discussing well-being in general (not specific within school context).
This search found 21 relevant articles according to the inclusion criteria. In general, almost all studies use affective components, positive and negative emotions as indicators of student well-being. The cognitive component comprises general evaluation of school life and social component that can be seen from student behaviors or interaction with peers, teachers and staff at school. Lastly, the behavioral component was explained through the student involvement with learning processes at school. Table 1 shows that several definitions of well-being were applied in previous studies. Findings reveal that the definition of student well-being used tend to focus on the positive aspects of student wellbeing rather than the negative aspects like disability or disorder. Besides, the data probing methods used were structured interview, observation, and valid and reliable questionnaire/scale. Unfortunately, there are only few questionnaires/scales constructed according to child perspective. There is only one study that conducted a structured interview to students with an aim to develop the student well-being scale (Engels, Aelterman, Van Petegem, & Schepens, 2004) In Table 1, the number of participants involved in research varied between 49-5170 students. Methods used also varied: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. Soutter et al. (2014) carried out qualitative research using classroom observation for students and teachers. Engels et al. (2004) and Hascher (2007Hascher ( , 2008 used mixed methods involving data gathering with a semi-structured interview (qualitative) and questionnaire/scale (quantitative). Engels et al. (2004) obtained initial data by conducting semi-structured interviews, and the findings were then used to construct a student well-being scale. Hascher (2007Hascher ( , 2008 combined qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a better understanding of student well-being at school. Nearly all studies discussed in Table 1 applied quantitative approach using scale/questionnaire/ student selfreport. Table   1.  Table 2 shows that most studies about student well-being used four main domains of well-being: positive emotion, social relation, the lack of negative emotion, and engagement at school. Based on 21 studies discussed in this article, eight studies are using the hedonistic approach, describing student well-being in three main components: life satisfaction, the domination of positive emotion, and the lack of negative emotion (Engels et al., 2004;Hascher, 2007Hascher, , 2008Liu, Mei, Tian, Huebner, 2016;Liu et al., 2014;Long et al., 2012;Pietarinen, Soini, & Pyha, 2014;Tian, Liu, Huang, & Huebner, 2013). In the school context, student well-being is defined as the domination of positive emotion experienced at school, the lack of negative emotion about school, and student satisfaction. Diener (1994) mentioned that positive emotion is the feeling of joy, enjoyment, and satisfaction.
There were only three studies explaining student well-being through the negative indicator of mental health problems (Kern et al., 2015;Sarkova et al., 2013) and reports of somatic symptoms (Donat et al., 2016). Kern et al. (2015) mentioned that student well-being was measured through mental health, including problems related to depression and the intention of suicide. Sarkova et al. (2014) also used anxiety/depression and social dysfunction as a negative indicator of student well-being at school. Donat et al. (2016) included somatic complaints as a negative indicator in which students felt certain somatic symptoms. The shift of mental health paradigm might be the reason why mental health perspective is less used as the domain of student wellbeing at school. A healthy mental condition is not only seen as the absence of disorder or disability but also by how an individual can showcase their capability to gain objectives and function optimally in society.  Engagement becomes a domain of student well-being in 10 studies (De Fraine et al., 2005;Engels et al., 2004;Holfve-Sabel, 2014;Kern et al., 2015;Long et al., 2012;Miller et al., 2013;Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2000;Petegem et al., 2008;Soutter et al., 2014). Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004) explained that engagement at school comes in three forms: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These cognitive, emotional and behavior aspects can be seen from students' participation in school activities, attendance, obedience to school rules, and the extent of efforts done in learning processes.
Then, five studies utilized achievement as an indicator of student well-being. Achievement is described as the student's ability to finish daily assignments and feeling accomplished and competent (Kern et al., 2015). Kern et al. (2015) explained that achievement comes in the form of students' study goal attainment at school. On the other side, achievement as the student well-being indicator can be explained as the competency learned (McLellan & Steward, 2015) and environmental mastery (Kurniastuti & Azwar, 2015).

Conclusion
Student well-being at school becomes an essential topic that must be considered because it is related to a number of important matters such as attachment to school, high academic achievement, and healthier physical and mental states (Suldo, et al., 2006;Suldo & Shaffer, 2008).
This literature review provides a number of conclusions. First, only few studies have been conducted about wellbeing within the school context. It can be an opportunity to do more studies to further examine the well-being of students at various levels of education. Second, previous studies focused on positive aspects to explain student well-being rather than the negative aspects (such as anxiety, stress, and depression). This literature study found that the domains of student well-being include positive emotions, social relationships, the lack of negative emotions, engagement with school, interpersonal factors, and achievement. For researchers who will construct the measurement scale for student's wellbeing at school, the findings can be used as foundations for it. Third, schools and education policymakers can consider these student's well-being aspects when designing programs to improve student well-being. It can be an output for educational goals.
The findings of this literature study can be used as the foundations for development of student well-being research and intervention in Indonesia. This study found that the emphasis of student well-being was placed more on the positive domain of students; namely positive emotions, social relationships, the lack of negative emotions, engagement with school, interpersonal factors, and achievement; compared to problems or disorders. This emphasis can be a starting point for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in Indonesia to narrow down research and interventions in identifying and promoting the positive strengths of students. Further research is needed to discover concepts and determinants specific to the circumstances of education in Indonesia.