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What affects student wellbeing?

  • 13 February 2020
  • By Tim Blackman
  • HEPI number Policy note 21

The key findings in What affects student wellbeing? (HEPI Policy Note 21) include:

  1. a relationship between ethnic identity and dissatisfaction with life, with life satisfaction scores of under 7 (on a 0-to-10 scale) varying from 42% among Bangladeshi students to 28% among White students
  2. a similar relationship between ethnic identity and anxiety, with anxiety scores of 7 or more ranging from 27% among Mixed identity students to 21% among Black African students
  3. more dissatisfaction with life among students from the lowest participation quintile than from the highest participation quintile (35% vs 30%)
  4. higher dissatisfaction with life among students who live at home while studying and who commute more than five miles (37%) than among those who have relocated to their place of study (30%)
  5. only 12% of students who relocate to study work 12 or more hours a week compared to 25% of students who continue living at home – but longer working hours have no significant effect on anxiety and only a small negative effect on life satisfaction
  6. 62% of students think all or most staff are helpful and supportive, while 22% say half and half are and 7% say few or none are
  7. as the proportion of staff experienced as helpful and supportive declines, the proportion of students reporting high anxiety rises, from 22% to 33%
  8. dissatisfaction with life is reported by 24% of students who feel all or most staff are helpful and supportive, but this rises to 49% among students who feel few or no staff are helpful and supportive
  9. when logistic regression is applied to the data to find out the actual independent effect of each variable, students who say they experience few or no helpful teachers are seen to be 146% more likely to report a high level of life dissatisfaction than students who report all or most teachers are helpful
  10. logistic regression also shows students who report few or no helpful teachers are 65% more likely to report a high level of anxiety than students who report all or most teachers as helpful

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