Can student wellbeing be measured?
Student wellbeing is a broad and multifaceted concept encompassing physical and mental health, social relationships, and financial stability. The stress of academic work and overall endurance directly affect students’ quality of life. Technology and artificial intelligence have introduced new ways to support and measure wellbeing in educational institutions, opening up new opportunities for both students and institutional experts. But how can student wellbeing be measured, and what challenges are involved?
Wellbeing is more than just physical health
Comprehensive student wellbeing is more than just physical health. Measuring physical activity, such as daily movement or sitting time, only provides insight into one area of a student’s wellbeing. The challenge lies in capturing a broader picture that includes aspects such as mental wellbeing, learning outcomes, social support, and financial stability. Academic performance indicators like class attendance and course completion rates can reveal much about a student’s wellbeing. Social relationships, a sense of belonging, and family support are also key elements that should be considered in these measurements.
Measurement challenges
Measuring wellbeing isn’t straightforward — it requires accuracy and reliable methods. Evaluations of measurement tools often focus on two important aspects: reliability and validity. Reliability means that results remain consistent over time, while validity refers to how well a tool actually measures what it is intended to. For instance, if sitting time is measured through a self-assessment survey, the results may be unreliable as people tend not to pay attention to their daily sitting habits. Objective tools, such as motion tracking devices, can provide data that differs significantly from self-assessments. This illustrates why it’s crucial to use methods that are both reliable and valid to obtain meaningful and actionable results.
Measuring total workload
The total workload experienced by students, especially when they combine full-time study with work, can be a major stressor. Educators often lack a complete picture of students’ external workloads, which makes tracking well-being challenging. Students themselves may underestimate or be unaware of their own limits, potentially leading to burnout. Measuring workload should account for both total workload and relative burden. Relative burden means that individual factors, such as resilience, stress tolerance, sleep, and social support, influence how demanding a particular workload feels to each student. This requires a more personalized approach to measuring wellbeing.
Coping skills and time management as part of wellbeing
Wellbeing measurement goes beyond physical and mental factors. Students’ coping skills and time management abilities are also essential parts of their overall wellbeing. These skills develop over the course of their studies, and measuring them can provide valuable insight into how well students are managing day-to-day demands. Wellbeing metrics can focus not only on the demands of a specific period but also on longer-term processes, such as student development and changes in wellbeing. Such metrics provide institutions with insight into how student wellbeing evolves over time and how support efforts could be better targeted.
Measurement and support go hand in hand
Measuring student wellbeing is a complex process that requires precise and reliable metrics. Physical, mental, social, and financial wellbeing assessments are vital for institutions to support students comprehensively. While AI and technology offer new possibilities for measuring wellbeing, ensuring the reliability and validity of these tools is essential to make the data truly effective. Wellbeing measurement should not be limited to individual assessments; instead, it should be a continuous process that tracks changes in wellbeing over time. By collecting data throughout the academic year, institutions can observe fluctuations and development in individual and institutional wellbeing. This allows institutions to better monitor student wellbeing and provide more precisely targeted support, helping ensure students’ endurance and success in their studies.
More targeted support through monitoring
By regularly collecting data on student well-being and endurance, institutional experts have the chance to direct support efforts more precisely — where they’re needed most. This targeting could include providing extra support services to students experiencing the highest levels of stress or developing support services to meet students’ needs at different stages of their studies. Systematic monitoring helps identify seasonal challenges, such as the stress caused by exam periods or internship requirements, allowing support to be offered proactively. In this way, students can receive timely help during challenging periods. Low threshold support prevents students from facing struggles alone, enhancing their chances to succeed and thrive in their studies. Perhaps the most critical measure of student wellbeing is the students’ own perception of it; as important as it is to measure wellbeing, it is equally crucial to influence it.
References:
Pesola, A. (2023). “Can Student Well-Being Be Measured?” Can the Impact of Student Support Be Measured? Webinar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIUR8rJzkpg
Sarmia, V. (2023). “Measuring the Impact of Student Support.” Can the Impact of Student Support Be Measured? Webinar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIUR8rJzkpg