An Exploration of School-Related Social Correlates of Student Psychological Ill-Being
Home » Publications » An Exploration of School-Related Social Correlates
Authors: Olajumoke Beulah Adigun, Curt M Adams
Over the years, research examining student psychological ill-being has sought to explain this phenomenon based on the influences of conditions that students bring into the school environment. This study uses a different lens by directly examining how school relational conditions might be associated with psychological ill-being in students. Using the framework of Self-Determination Theory and data from 2522 US public school students, findings from this study revealed that both faculty and peer relational conditions were significantly associated with psychological need frustration, which was used as the marker for student psychological ill-being. Further, students with free-reduced lunch status reported experiencing need frustration more than their counterparts with non-free-reduced lunch status. Need frustration at the school level was also found to be associated with differences in student perceptions of school relational conditions. Collectively, findings from this study provide potentially useful directions for school practitioners and other educational stakeholders by extracting valuable markers for managing the challenge of student psychological ill-being within the school environment.
Keywords: student disengagement, psychological needs thwarting, self-determination theory, student-teacher relationships
To read the full article, click here.
For questions or to receive a copy of the article, please email the corresponding author, beulah.adigun@okstate.edu