Future School of Comprehensive Well-Being (SCHOOLWELL)/ 2 (SchoolWell/2)
The research was funded by Strategic Research Council at the Research Council of Finland.
Main funder
Funder's project number: 352512
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 444 138,00
Funding program
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/10/2022
Project end date: 30/09/2025
Summary
Executive summary
Need: Our future depends on the comprehensive wellbeing of children and youth, their ability to fulfil their potential, learn actively and thrive. The potential gains and the stakes regarding the next generation’s comprehensive wellbeing, including their physical, mental, and social well-being, are high. Good physical, mental and social health, particularly in childhood and early adolescence, are powerful predictors of positive life trajectories. Contrary to this, problems in these domains expose individuals to negative developmental trajectories. Although most Finnish children and adolescents are doing well, some are not, and differences are growing fast. Also, the scope of issues to be addressed related to children’s comprehensive wellbeing is wide, ranging from social exclusion to physical inactivity. School provides a potentially powerful arena for early prevention and treatment of wellbeing issues among children and youth due to its incisiveness and long-term impact. Yet, the understanding on the joint predictors and dynamics between mental, physical, and social wellbeing is limited, leaving the professionals in school ill-prepared to tackle the multidimensional and cumulative challenges related to students’ wellbeing. Hence, it is no surprise that finding efficient means to promote comprehensive wellbeing of children and youth with the help of the school has become a top priority of our society.
Main aims. SchoolWell strives to understand complexity and development of students’ comprehensive wellbeing in school, including mental, physical and social dimensions of wellbeing, the interrelation between comprehensive wellbeing and learning, and socio-pedagogically ingrained means to enhance and prevent inequalities. We aim to create research-based effective and sustainable socio-pedagogical solutions to cultivate the students’ comprehensive wellbeing and learning at school. Accordingly, the expected societal impact of SchoolWell is primarily inherent in co-creating research-based means and supporting materials for pro-actively promoting students’ comprehensive wellbeing through efficient socio-pedagogical practices that can be scaled-up and adopted at school. Cultivating such practices at school and throughout our educational system would not only act as preventive measures for negative consequences of ill-being among children and youth but would also promote positive life trajectories and further contribute to equality in society.
Research implementation. SchoolWell draws on multidisciplinary methodological diversity to understand the complex dynamics of the students’ comprehensive wellbeing and ways to cultivate it in school. Our empirical design builds in a unique combination of “big” national and regional cohort-based secondary data and “thick” multimodal intervention data. Both objective and subjective measures will be used. The empirical design involves carrying out longitudinal nested multimethod intervention research in vivo by applying cluster-randomized controlled trial, and testing/verifying the hypothesis across the complementary large scale secondary data sets. Combination of “big” and “thick” multi-level data, will enable cross-validation of self-report and large scale national and regional cohort based data, contributing further to development of novel measures of students’ comprehensive wellbeing. SchoolWell has nested WP design, accordingly all the WPs are interlinked in an organic manner. WP1 uses a combination of large-scale cohort based longitudinal regional and national secondary data sets, and systematic literature reviews to identify common predictors for students’ positive physical, mental, and social wellbeing trajectories and characteristics for effective interventions to promote them. Multimodal interventions carried out in WP2 are designed based on a combination of WP1 results and students’ wellbeing needs analysis. WP2 involves carrying out a full cycle of multimodal interventions during one school year in the case schools (n=10; 5th and 7th graders) and using the array of subjective and objective measures on wellbeing and learning to identify effective proactive socio-pedagogical means to enhance students’ comprehensive wellbeing at school. WP3 combines big and thick data from WP1, WP2 and follow-up data collected in WP4 to identify equality gaps in the comprehensive well-being. WP4 focuses on evaluating the long-term impact of the interventions by using measures of WP2 (see details in Table 1.). WP5 coordinates and supports interactions across all WPs. Finally, the results of all the WPs will be integrated to create research-based sustainable solutions to enhance students’ comprehensive wellbeing at school and means to prevent and overcome equality gaps regarding wellbeing, by combining the multidisciplinary approaches adopted in SchoolWell.
SchoolWell’s multidisciplinary team and the network of research-practice partnerships. SchoolWell brings together multidisciplinary teams of scholars, from the fields of medicine (adolescent psychiatry), sport and health sciences (sport pedagogy, sport psychology, health promotion and education), public health science (social epidemiology and biomedical data science) and behavioural sciences (educational psychology and educational sciences) with distinct but complementary expertise to study complexity and development of students’ comprehensive wellbeing and means to enhance it at school. Co-creating the future School of Comprehensive Well-Being requires input from the core stakeholders across Finnish educational system. SchoolWell will rely on a nested research-practice partnership and co-creation with the stakeholders, including students, teachers and other school staff, parents, agencies presenting them, teacher educators, school administrators and policy makers. Our interaction strategy draws on the translational sciences approach characterized by stakeholder questions/problems, cultivating research-based practice, and promoting system-wide change in implementing the SchoolWell interactions to maximize the impact.
Need: Our future depends on the comprehensive wellbeing of children and youth, their ability to fulfil their potential, learn actively and thrive. The potential gains and the stakes regarding the next generation’s comprehensive wellbeing, including their physical, mental, and social well-being, are high. Good physical, mental and social health, particularly in childhood and early adolescence, are powerful predictors of positive life trajectories. Contrary to this, problems in these domains expose individuals to negative developmental trajectories. Although most Finnish children and adolescents are doing well, some are not, and differences are growing fast. Also, the scope of issues to be addressed related to children’s comprehensive wellbeing is wide, ranging from social exclusion to physical inactivity. School provides a potentially powerful arena for early prevention and treatment of wellbeing issues among children and youth due to its incisiveness and long-term impact. Yet, the understanding on the joint predictors and dynamics between mental, physical, and social wellbeing is limited, leaving the professionals in school ill-prepared to tackle the multidimensional and cumulative challenges related to students’ wellbeing. Hence, it is no surprise that finding efficient means to promote comprehensive wellbeing of children and youth with the help of the school has become a top priority of our society.
Main aims. SchoolWell strives to understand complexity and development of students’ comprehensive wellbeing in school, including mental, physical and social dimensions of wellbeing, the interrelation between comprehensive wellbeing and learning, and socio-pedagogically ingrained means to enhance and prevent inequalities. We aim to create research-based effective and sustainable socio-pedagogical solutions to cultivate the students’ comprehensive wellbeing and learning at school. Accordingly, the expected societal impact of SchoolWell is primarily inherent in co-creating research-based means and supporting materials for pro-actively promoting students’ comprehensive wellbeing through efficient socio-pedagogical practices that can be scaled-up and adopted at school. Cultivating such practices at school and throughout our educational system would not only act as preventive measures for negative consequences of ill-being among children and youth but would also promote positive life trajectories and further contribute to equality in society.
Research implementation. SchoolWell draws on multidisciplinary methodological diversity to understand the complex dynamics of the students’ comprehensive wellbeing and ways to cultivate it in school. Our empirical design builds in a unique combination of “big” national and regional cohort-based secondary data and “thick” multimodal intervention data. Both objective and subjective measures will be used. The empirical design involves carrying out longitudinal nested multimethod intervention research in vivo by applying cluster-randomized controlled trial, and testing/verifying the hypothesis across the complementary large scale secondary data sets. Combination of “big” and “thick” multi-level data, will enable cross-validation of self-report and large scale national and regional cohort based data, contributing further to development of novel measures of students’ comprehensive wellbeing. SchoolWell has nested WP design, accordingly all the WPs are interlinked in an organic manner. WP1 uses a combination of large-scale cohort based longitudinal regional and national secondary data sets, and systematic literature reviews to identify common predictors for students’ positive physical, mental, and social wellbeing trajectories and characteristics for effective interventions to promote them. Multimodal interventions carried out in WP2 are designed based on a combination of WP1 results and students’ wellbeing needs analysis. WP2 involves carrying out a full cycle of multimodal interventions during one school year in the case schools (n=10; 5th and 7th graders) and using the array of subjective and objective measures on wellbeing and learning to identify effective proactive socio-pedagogical means to enhance students’ comprehensive wellbeing at school. WP3 combines big and thick data from WP1, WP2 and follow-up data collected in WP4 to identify equality gaps in the comprehensive well-being. WP4 focuses on evaluating the long-term impact of the interventions by using measures of WP2 (see details in Table 1.). WP5 coordinates and supports interactions across all WPs. Finally, the results of all the WPs will be integrated to create research-based sustainable solutions to enhance students’ comprehensive wellbeing at school and means to prevent and overcome equality gaps regarding wellbeing, by combining the multidisciplinary approaches adopted in SchoolWell.
SchoolWell’s multidisciplinary team and the network of research-practice partnerships. SchoolWell brings together multidisciplinary teams of scholars, from the fields of medicine (adolescent psychiatry), sport and health sciences (sport pedagogy, sport psychology, health promotion and education), public health science (social epidemiology and biomedical data science) and behavioural sciences (educational psychology and educational sciences) with distinct but complementary expertise to study complexity and development of students’ comprehensive wellbeing and means to enhance it at school. Co-creating the future School of Comprehensive Well-Being requires input from the core stakeholders across Finnish educational system. SchoolWell will rely on a nested research-practice partnership and co-creation with the stakeholders, including students, teachers and other school staff, parents, agencies presenting them, teacher educators, school administrators and policy makers. Our interaction strategy draws on the translational sciences approach characterized by stakeholder questions/problems, cultivating research-based practice, and promoting system-wide change in implementing the SchoolWell interactions to maximize the impact.
Principal Investigator
Other persons related to this project (JYU)
Primary responsible unit
Follow-up groups
- Behaviour change, health, and well-being across the lifespan (University of Jyväskylä JYU) BC-Well
- Multidisciplinary research on learning and teaching (University of Jyväskylä JYU) MultiLeTe
- Physical activity through life span (University of Jyväskylä JYU) PACTS
- School of Wellbeing (University of Jyväskylä JYU) JYU.Well
- Social Sustainability for Children and Families (University of Jyväskylä JYU) SOSUS
Profiling area: Behaviour change, health, and well-being across the lifespan (University of Jyväskylä JYU) BC-Well; Multidisciplinary research on learning and teaching (University of Jyväskylä JYU) MultiLeTe; Physical activity through life span (University of Jyväskylä JYU) PACTS; School of Wellbeing (University of Jyväskylä JYU) JYU.Well; Social Sustainability for Children and Families (University of Jyväskylä JYU) SOSUS
Related publications and other outputs
- Developmental Patterns of Objectively Measured Motor Competence and Musculoskeletal Fitness among Finnish Adolescents (2024) Costigan, Sarah; et al.; A1
- Developmental relations of achievement goals and affect in physical education (2024) Barkoukis, Vassilis; et al.; A1
- Longitudinal Associations Between Enjoyment of Physical Education, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Muscular Fitness Among Finnish Adolescents (2024) Costigan, Sarah; et al.; A1; OA
- The associations between organized sport participation and physical fitness and weight status development during adolescence (2024) Kolunsarka, Iiris; et al.; A1; OA
- Trajectories of osteogenic physical activity in children and adolescents : a 3-year cohort study (2024) Haapala, Eero A.; et al.; A1; OA