Positive Feelings at School: On the Relationships Between Students’ Character Strengths, School-Related Affect, and School Functioning

Marco Weber (), Lisa Wagner and Willibald Ruch

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2016, vol. 17, issue 1, 355 pages

Abstract: The present study was designed to examine the relationships between students’ character strengths, school-related affect, positive school functioning (i.e., motivation to learn, interest, and engagement at class), and school achievement following the “engine model of well-being” that is focusing on inputs (e.g., personality traits), processes (e.g., moods, emotions), and outcomes (e.g., engagement, accomplishments) within the context of well-being research. A sample of 196 children completed the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth, which assesses 24 character strengths, and the PANAS-C that assesses school-related positive and negative affect. Additionally, homeroom teachers rated students’ positive school functioning (i.e., motivation, engagement, and interest at school) and their overall school achievement. The character strengths of zest, love of learning, perseverance, and social intelligence showed the strongest positive correlations with school-related positive affect. Teamwork, hope, self-regulation, and love were substantially negatively correlated with school-related negative affect. Certain character strengths showed positive relationships with positive school functioning and overall school achievement. A path model, testing the “engine model of well-being”, found—additionally to direct effects—indirect relationships between character strengths and positive school functioning (through school-related positive affect), which in turn leads to higher school achievement. The presented findings show character strengths as meaningful resources in the schooling context. Character strengths emerge to be crucial for students to experience school-related positive affect, which in turn supports students’ positive school functioning and their overall school achievement. The results demonstrate the complex interplay between students’ personality traits, affect, school functioning, and achievement at school. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Keywords: Character strengths; School-related affect; School functioning; School achievement; Children; “Engine model of well-being” (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-014-9597-1 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:17:y:2016:i:1:p:341-355

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-014-9597-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().