1. Introduction
The problem of adolescents’ school wellbeing is of genuine concern, despite the seemingly well-thought issues related to organizing their adaptation to the academic environment, the system of interrelations between all of its subjects, and the educational process. Adolescents face a variety of problems that lead to anxiety and frustration. These include lack of attention to individual characteristics of their development [
1]; school responsibilities and excessive academic demands; intense relations with both peers and adults [
2]. Modern psychological research, which is carried out worldwide, has recorded the highest rates of school anxiety in children of this age category, specifically in Russia. An increased level of school anxiety is a trigger for a number of somatic disorders. These include: endocrine system disorders, eating disorders, metabolic disorders, immune disorders, nervous system disorders [
3]. Apart from somatic diseases, psychological disorders also occur in children as anxiety levels increase. This fact was confirmed by the studies of European psychologists [
4].
The optimal level of schoolchildren’s anxiety assures their academic and communicative success and promotes their general wellbeing [
5,
6]. The psychological wellbeing of a schoolchild is a marker of good psychological functioning. According to most researchers, moderate anxiety has a positive effect on development, as it acts as adaptive anxiety that contributes to a person’s success. Moderate anxiety is the marker of relative emotional wellbeing. On the contrary, excessive calmness is a sign of distress and presence of psychological problems, expressed through inappropriate behavior and latent aggression; in some cases, it may indicate depressive tendencies, etc. It has been proven that increased anxiety levels in schoolchildren are accompanied by other psychological disorders [
7]. Pathological anxiety interferes with healthy functioning and the development of the system [
8]. When anxiety symptoms remain unnoticed or are misinterpreted and viewed as behavioral and academic problems, children’s social, academic and emotional wellbeing can be under threat [
9]. High levels of anxiety can lead to avoidant disorder in a student, which manifests through frequent truancy, refusal to attend school, avoidance of social interaction, decreased self-esteem, etc. Increased anxiety, which is expressed through frequent absenteeism, is a characteristic symptom of a student’s low level of school wellbeing. Excessive school anxiety indicators cause low self-esteem and a tendency to use self-deprecation strategies [
10], which is expressed through the feeling of unhappiness, dissatisfaction with oneself and one’s life, which are the key aspects of personal wellbeing/ill-being. In this case, the question of how academic anxiety and school wellbeing of adolescents has correlated becomes significant for psychology.
When studying personal wellbeing in a particular environment, it is necessary to identify its components at a given time and its factors. Thus, Polivanova [
11] views schoolchildren’s wellbeing as a complex of “individual” components: psychological wellbeing (the idea of oneself and one’s life); cognitive wellbeing (knowledge and skills); social wellbeing (quality of social communication); physical wellbeing (health) and material wellbeing (financial capabilities of the family). The adolescent’s academic wellbeing model consists of several factors that affect their anxiety level, i.e., school conditions, social relations, self-realization tools, and health. The latter factor refers to physical health and wellbeing, which is viewed as the satisfaction of basic needs, i.e., to have, to love, and to be [
12]; satisfaction; happiness; the high quality of life. According to PISA-2018 data, schoolchildren characterize wellbeing at school as satisfaction with their appearance, relations with parents, and school events [
13].
Indicators of adolescents’ subjective wellbeing are their wellbeing at school; good relations with teachers; interest in academic tasks; educational motivation; responsibility for homework; attentiveness in the classroom, a positive academic image of themselves; social integration in the classroom. In addition to all other factors, social relationships, mainly with peers, affect schoolchildren’s academic wellbeing to a greater extent [
14]. They influence how a child will develop interpersonal relationships in the future [
15,
16], the realization of his/her personal potential, as well as mental health [
17].
An adolescent’s wellbeing depends on how comfortable, meaningful, and enjoyable his/her life is. Wellbeing at school consists of a complex of external and internal components, i.e., positive emotions related to school as a whole, positive academic self-concept, deriving pleasure from school activities, an optimal level of academic anxiety, absence of somatic disorders associated with educational activities, and absence of social problems in the educational environment [
18].
It should be noted that adolescents’ wellbeing is often viewed through the prism of their academic success, but little attention is paid to whether a child feels comfortable with this. The modern education system aims to increase educational achievements, which serve as a guarantee of personal subjective wellbeing in adult life. Analysts who survey school life note that the quality of life of an adolescent, satisfaction with it at a given point in time should not be sacrificed for future success and achievements [
19]. Despite the fact that an adolescent’s wellbeing is an assisting factor in overcoming anxiety, which contributes to the development of “immunity” to stressful situations, it actualizes their potential; it also serves as an indicator of an adolescent’s academic adaptation. The academic wellbeing of a teenager is viewed as a system of experiences reflecting his/her idea of their place within the “environment-child” system. Their state depends on how intense these experiences are [
20]. The sign of a student’s school wellbeing is positive mood, orientation towards the future, success, satisfaction with studies, general self-esteem and private self-esteem (appearance, success in any type of activity), social orientation, decision-making ability, good sleep, energy, appetite and optimal anxiety level [
21].
Along with studying the subjective wellbeing of schoolchildren, school anxiety is being studied quite widely as well. Children and adolescents who have school anxiety are apt to show poor academic performance, symptoms of acute anxiety, tension or disturbance, depression, melancholy, ambivalent and hyperactive behavior, and a distorted self-image [
22]. It is possible to identify some structural components of school anxiety-like social and general anxiety [
23]; anticipatory anxiety; anxiety connected to school performance, and generalized anxiety disorder [
24]. Academic anxiety deserves special attention concerning some of its aspects like mathematical [
25,
26,
27] and test anxiety which appears to be the most studied [
28,
29].
Studying the correlation between subjective wellbeing and anxiety indicates that there is a steady connection between them [
30,
31,
32]. Studies of schoolchildren in this context are pretty fragmental.
Derdikman-Eiron et al. [
33] studied the subjective wellbeing of adolescents with symptoms of anxiety and depression. It was found that symptoms of depression and anxiety characterize 10.2% of students aged 13–19 years, and they are significantly more common in girls than in boys. The study of the correlation between anxiety and subjective wellbeing indicated that boys without symptoms of anxiety are characterized by a higher level of subjective wellbeing than girls. In contrast, the correlation between anxiety and subjective wellbeing regarding gender differences in anxious adolescents was not detected. As it was noted later on by Moksnes et al. [
34], anxiety and subjective wellbeing in adolescents may change during the school year. Thus, girls had higher rates of anxiety than boys at the beginning of the year, while boys had significantly higher rates of mental wellbeing than girls. Still, at the end of the year, the increase of anxiety and the decrease of wellbeing were indicated both in boys and girls. Holopainen et al. [
35] draw our attention to the fact that those students who experienced learning difficulties had a lower level of subjective wellbeing.
It is noteworthy that most research studies the relationship between school wellbeing and one specific type of anxiety—test anxiety [
36,
37]. The study of Putwain et al. [
38] reveals a negative relationship between school wellbeing and anxiety while testing. According to the study results of Kaplan [
39], the connection between subjective wellbeing and anxiety is low and middle-rated. It is also noted that students with a higher level of subjective wellbeing had lower anxiety and general emotional problems. Steinmayr et al. [
40] concluded that test anxiety negatively impacts cognitive and affective components of life satisfaction in students of the 11th grade. Attention is also paid to the prevention and correction of school anxiety and ill-being with the help of various technologies and practices, through sports [
41], group interventions [
42], cognitive-behavioral interventions [
43], etc.
Thus, current studies present separate attempts to study the relationship between subjective wellbeing and anxiety in schoolchildren. However, there is still no research that provides a system and structure to the issue.
Based on the foregoing, it can be assumed that anxiety level directly correlates with the student’s wellbeing level. However, it is important to establish a connection and identify those characteristics of school wellbeing/ill-being that significantly contribute to variations in school anxiety and should be viewed as the most important objects (targets) of psychological intervention.
3. Materials and Methods
3.1. Study Design
The logic of the study is as follows. To test the first hypothesis, we analyze the arithmetic means and factor structures of school wellbeing. The obtained factors are viewed as related ones according to the principle of joint variability. The data obtained from factor analysis are interpreted as types of school wellbeing or ill-being, which are indicated on the basis of related characteristics. To test the second hypothesis, we study the regression analysis results, where school anxiety indicators are the independent variables, and indicators of school adolescents’ wellbeing/ill-being are dependent variables. Then, to test the third hypothesis, a regression analysis is performed. The dependent variable is the general indicator of school anxiety, and the independent variables are new enlarged variables obtained from factor analysis of school wellbeing/ill-being characteristics.
3.2. Participants
The study involved 120 junior adolescents of the 5th-7th grades, 10–13 years (mean (M) = 11.5, SD = 1.04 years) (n = 59 (49.2%) girls, n = 61 (50.8%) boys). The study involved students of secondary schools: 5-graders—40, 6-graders—40, 7-graders—40 (2 classes each, the average number of students in each class is 20 people). The sample was consistent with the population of junior adolescents studying at city secondary schools in age, gender, education, socio-demographic characteristics.
3.3. Measurements
Junior adolescents’ school wellbeing was defined with the unique scales that were developed by the authors of the study based on the choice of one of the four answer options (“yes, almost always,” “not always,” “sometimes,” “no”).
In the scales’ development, the authors use the approach which links wellbeing with psychological adaptation indicators. On the one hand, personal subjective wellbeing is an important outcome and indicator of psychological adaptation [
47,
48,
49,
50]. On the other hand, personal wellbeing is a condition for further psychological adaptation under new conditions of activity [
45,
51,
52].
In addition, earlier studies, which developed the concept of active school adaptation, found that its main components were: cognitive characteristics that contribute to effective mastering of academic skills and self-organization of a student in the educational process; emotional wellbeing and positive intrinsic motivation for learning [
53]. The assessment of each scale for compliance with the measured phenomenon was carried out by 5 researchers dealing with the problem of school wellbeing, who were asked to evaluate each scale from 0 to 4 for applicability. Afterward, there was a discussion of each scale formulization and tool improvement. The average acceptance score for each scale ranged from 3.6 to 4. All scales found a significant positive correlation with student satisfaction with school life, measured by direct ranking using the Likert scale.
Examples of scales: “Are you usually in a good mood at school?”, “Are you comfortable with communication with teachers?”, “Do you quickly understand the teacher’s explanations?” etc. The scales developed by the authors of the article were proposed to 5 experts working in the field of developmental psychology, educational psychology, who assessed them on a 5-point scale in terms of their compliance with various aspects of school wellbeing. Next, we selected questions that received more than 4 points on average. All scales were checked for consistency using the Cronbach Alpha method and gave acceptable results (α = 0.81–0.86).
To define characteristics of school anxiety as one of the aspects of adolescents’ adaptation to school, we used Philips’ School Anxiety Scale (SAS). The scale includes 58 questions, which have to be answered with a “yes” or a “no.” This method’s application allows diagnosing the general level of school anxiety, as well as its individual aspects: experiencing social stress, frustration related to the need to achieve success, fear of self-expression, fear of the situation when one’s knowledge is tested, fear of not meeting expectations of others, low physiological resistance to stress, problems, and fears regarding relations with teachers. The scales showed a good level of internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha test showed acceptable results α = 0.76–0.84).
3.4. Procedure
The empirical data collection was carried out in the first half of the 2020–2021 academic year. The survey had been conducted with the permission of the school administration and parents of those adolescents who participated in the study. The method of randomized selection was used. Classes of secondary schools were selected randomly. The selection of classes was not previously made, which ensured the representativeness of the sample.
The data sources used in this study were accurate and reliable. While develo** the tool, we used data gained from focus groups of school psychologists (5 people) and parents of students (three focus groups of 7 people each) concerning school problems and the school wellbeing of junior adolescents. The participants of the focus groups were asked to name the signs of school wellbeing and ill-being of 5–7 graders. The number of focus groups was dictated by the necessity to check and recheck the criteria for assessing the school wellbeing in adolescents by parents of students and school psychologists. The data gathered from school psychologists and parents were grouped by modality into cognitive, personal, emotional, and social characteristics. Then, each item of the questionnaire was assessed by the 5 psychologists dealing with problems of school wellbeing for compliance with the phenomenon of school wellbeing in adolescents. The final version of the questionnaire included those characteristics of school wellbeing or ill-being in adolescents that appeared to be common for all participants of focus groups, sporadic ones were not included in the questionnaire. Signs of school wellbeing and signs of ill-being were included in each group of characteristics reflecting cognitive, personal, emotional, and social indications of school wellbeing. For a more accurate determination of psychophysiological indications, the group of psychophysiological signs included symptoms of negative psychophysiological state (headache, abdominal discomfort, back/arms/legs, etc., muscle fatigue). The criteria for the school wellbeing of adolescents obtained as a result of discussions in focus groups correlate with previous studies [
13,
14,
18], which indicates the content validity of these criteria. The studies were carried out in two secondary schools with no specific parameters for selection (without a profile), thereby ensuring confidence that the sample will represent the target population of junior adolescents of secondary school. The survey of students was conducted in the presence of a school psychologist, providing psychological assistance to students if necessary.
All parents of the children provided their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The experimental studies were performed in accordance with the Ethical Standards (2000) and were approved by the local Research Ethics Committee (Protocol No. 2 of August 20, 2020) of the Saratov State University (Faculty of Psychological, Pedagogical, and Special education). The study was conducted at the beginning of the academic year for 2 months.
3.5. Statistical Analysis
We used the statistical software package IBM SPSS Statistics + PS IMAGO PRO to process the primary data.
First, the scales were checked for internal consistency using the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and the data were checked for the normality of the distribution using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov’s test and the analysis of asymmetry and kurtosis indicators. All tests showed an acceptable result of matching the distribution to the normal one. Then the socio-demographic data were studied using descriptive statistics (displayed in averages, standard deviations, and percentages). After that, a factor analysis (EFA) of indicators of school wellbeing/ill-being was carried out using the main components method and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a 1 and 4-factor solution. Then a regression analysis was carried out. Independent variables were indicators of wellbeing (at the beginning separately, then new variables based on factor analysis), and dependent variables are indicators of school anxiety.
5. Discussion
Comparative analysis of indicators of school wellbeing made it possible to identify the most and least manifested characteristics. A high level of tension in adolescents was established in areas of school life that characterize the system of emotional self-regulation, self-control, and organization-related function of activity. Tension in the field of cognitive activity and academic success is somewhat less pronounced. However, according to the study results of Moksnes et al. [
34], the stress associated with school performance has a significant negative impact on life satisfaction. In contrast, the stress experienced from communication with a teacher is extra significant. In areas of school life that characterize the system of emotional self-regulation, self-control, and organization-related function of activity, we observed very high differentiation of indicators, which means that some adolescents have higher indicators while others have lower indicators of these characteristics. These areas are obviously the most important ones for school adaptation [
46]. On average, characteristics of school wellbeing are most pronounced within the system of relations (with teachers and peers), attitudes towards academic work. These findings are consistent with research findings [
54,
55] that identify social factors of adolescents’ school wellbeing and the importance of emotional self-regulation factors [
44]. Intrinsic motivation for academic work, lack of fear of external evaluation and negative consequences also play a significant role in school adaptation [
56]. The collected data correspond to the results of other empirical studies [
34], expert assessments (made by professional psychologists), and assessments of students’ parents, according to which junior adolescents are more stressed about their abilities to organize their activities and academic performance.
Factor analysis allowed us to identify four factors that characterize different aspects of the school wellbeing of adolescents. They are: striving for knowledge and self-organization (the most powerful factor); autonomy and personal maturity; good physical state, self-regulation, and social adaptation; self-respect and desire to develop. This sequence characterizes the value-related sequence, which determines the importance of various components of school wellbeing. These data contribute to debunking the myth that the main thing related to adolescent’s school wellbeing is the system of relations with peers and teachers. To a large extent, these relationships are important in primary school age because they influence the optimism, school motivation, creativity, satisfaction with the school life of students [
57]. However, cognitive activity and its motivators are still first, while relations-related factors take second place. The success in cognitive activity as a significant factor of school wellbeing of adolescents was noted earlier as well [
46]. At the same time, relations-related factors were identified in several studies as the primary [
58]. Finally, the most important circumstance of the school wellbeing in junior adolescents is a developed (in accordance with age) system of self-regulation and self-control, which are the resources of their psychological wellbeing at the following stages of education [
59]. The psychological wellbeing of schoolchildren is largely determined by a high level of school wellbeing and a low level of school anxiety [
60].
As a result of regression analysis, it was found that 16% to 53% of the deviation variables characterizing school anxiety are conditioned by evaluation of various characteristics of school wellbeing/ill-being of junior adolescents. The most important ones are variables characterizing emotional states, ability to self-regulate, cognitive capabilities, and interest in learning. From the obtained data, it follows that about half of the variations of social stress, frustration/barrier on the way to success, and fear of adolescents not meeting expectations are explained by the characteristics of school wellbeing. The strongest predictors are manifestations of negative emotions, subjectively poor cognitive development, and motivation to avoid trouble. Since school anxiety and characteristics of ill-being are the most obvious signs of school maladjustment [
53,
61], it can be assumed that tension in understanding academic material, subjective deficiencies in cognitive functions (memory, attention, thinking), lack of internal motivation due to this, and problems of emotional self-regulation are its most important causes.
These data indicate that social stress, frustration, and fear of not living up to somebody’s expectations are not caused by social tension proper, but rather by the internal problems of adolescents, in particular their self-esteem and self-respect [
34]. This is consistent with the data of researchers who note the high importance of social factors in the wellbeing of schoolchildren (parents’ expectations, ways of motivating teenagers, etc.) [
54,
62] and evidence that classroom climate is loosely associated with social-emotional stress [
63].
Finally, as a result of the regression analysis, it was found that two new variables of school wellbeing based on physical wellbeing, self-regulation and social adaptation, and school wellbeing based on autonomy and personal maturity explain nearly 21% of variations of adolescents’ school anxiety. It is obvious that the combination of indicators like satisfaction with peers’ interrelationship; sufficient development of cognitive sphere (attention, memory, comprehension, speech); the absence of unpleasant physical sensations before, at and after school; self-regulation of mental-state; self-assessment of adaptability and satisfaction with the learning activity, capability to defend one’s position in a dispute, capability to organize one’s learning activity at home, autonomy at learning activity and self-assessment of academic success is significant for reducing school anxiety. The results obtained from previous researches also support this assumption. In particular, school anxiety can be reduced by cognitive-behavioral interventions [
64], in which the deactivation of the main aspects of anxiety allowed to reduce it slightly, but it turned out that there are some other factors of anxiety. At the same time, learning and social activity, perseverance, and persistence also prevent the development of school anxiety [
7,
14].
Many studies show that the characteristics of school wellbeing in adolescents constitute grounds for the prevention of school anxiety, their adaptation to the school environment [
47,
60], and psychological wellbeing in general [
18,
61]. The results of our research confirm the previously collected data on the significant role of junior adolescents’ school wellbeing/ill-being characteristics in school anxiety variations and contribute to the further development of the study in this realm. The value of the data collected by us lies in identifying specific characteristics of school wellbeing/ill-being, which are significant for predicting the symptoms of school anxiety. We have identified distinct characteristics and combinations, which were presented as factors and predictors of school anxiety. The results of our study open up the prospect for studying the substantive characteristics of psychological wellbeing not only in young but in senior adolescents as well and determine the scope of “individual” psychological assistance to them.
6. Conclusions
As a result of the study, the hypotheses put forward were confirmed. Junior adolescents’ school wellbeing forms a complex structure that includes school life’s cognitive, personal, emotional, social, and psychophysiological characteristics. The ability to emotional self-regulation in academic situations; signs of psychophysiological wellbeing before, at, and after school; tendency to plan a school day; reflection on classwork and learning motivation are indicated to a lesser degree within the structure of school wellbeing. Such values as satisfaction with the process of communication with peers and teachers and the process of taking care of school supplies have the highest score; adolescents showed a desire to be a good student, and a positive attitude to the educational material was expressed as well. Factor analysis identified four factors corresponding to four types of school wellbeing: “school wellbeing based on the desire for knowledge and self-organization,” “school wellbeing based on autonomy and personal maturity,” “school wellbeing based on physical wellbeing, self-regulation, and social adaptation,” and “school wellbeing based on self-respect and desire to develop.”
School anxiety is determined primarily by characteristics of school ill-being. Regression analysis showed that social stress is the most deterministic factor among other indicators of school ill-being, and its reduction is associated with a student’s good mood at school; satisfaction with relationships with classmates; the ability to defend one’s position in a dispute; the use of techniques and means that improve wellbeing and increase self-confidence at school (phone, social networks, belief in superstitions, self-immersion, avoidance of communication, talking with friends, etc.); lack of external educational motivation to avoid troubles and negative reaction of parents to a student’s grades. A student’s academic success is primarily determined by his/her positive emotional state and good cognitive development. Fear of self-expression in adolescents at school is significantly reduced due to the absence of manifestations of negative emotions (sadness, resentment, anger) and the absence of external educational motivation to avoid troubles. Attention to internal cognitive and regulatory processes and states increases fear of self-expression in adolescents at school. The absence of negative emotional response to school events and ease in co** with negative emotions help to reduce fear of knowledge testing in adolescents. In contrast, planning a school day increases it. Overall emotional wellbeing reduces fear of a teacher, while satisfaction with relations with classmates increases it.
The academic success of a student is primarily determined by his/her positive emotional state and good cognitive development.
Fear of self-expression in adolescents at school is significantly reduced due to the absence of manifestations of negative emotions (sadness, resentment, anger) and the absence of external educational motivation to avoid troubles. Attention to internal cognitive and regulatory processes and states increases fear of self-expression in adolescents at school.
The absence of negative emotional response to school events and ease in the regulation of negative emotions helps to reduce fear of knowledge checks in adolescents. In contrast, planning of the school day increases it. Overall emotional wellbeing reduces fear of a teacher, while satisfaction with relations with classmates increases it. The strongest predictors of overall school anxiety in adolescents are those which can be combined together, representing two new variables being school wellbeing based on physical wellbeing, self-regulation, and social adaptation, and school wellbeing based on autonomy and personal maturity.