Abstract:
Psychological well-being is fundamental to human interaction and how one navigates through one's own life course (Turashvilli & Japaridze, 2012). Significant attention has been given to psychological well-being and its relationship or association with student academic performance, as increased pressure is being mounted on educators to improve student outcomes. Several correlational and cross-sectional studies have demonstrated an association between subjective well-being and school success (Gilman & Huebner, 2003; Verkuyten & Thijs, 2002). However few studies have systematically explored to what extent well-being alone accounts for student performance. The following study will conduct a meta-analysis of well-being and its relationship/association with academic performance in an effort to identify the common effect size of student well-being against performance. A meta-analysis is a warranted methodology to examine this question, as it is a collection of statistical techniques in resolving tensions in themes and contradictions among the various studies (Glass, 1976). This study considered published journal articles from Proquest, PsyInfo and ERIC from the period of 2000-2017, and specifically selected studies that reported on wellbeing and student academic performance. The findings suggested that well-being alone cannot account for academic performance and that wellbeing is indirectly related to academic performance, but how wellbeing is measured, conceptualised and operationalized further influences this relationship. Implications of the study are discussed.