Study well-being profiles, recovery strategies, and academic performance among university students: a person-oriented approach

Abstract The present study introduces a circumplex model of study well-being as an application of occupational well-being research to a higher education context. Accordingly, the first aim was to identify what kind of study well-being profiles (SWP), representing different levels and combinations of study engagement, burnout, satisfaction, holism, and boredom; there are among university students and how stable the SWPs are during the academic school year. The second aim was to investigate how the identified SWPs are related to students’ recovery strategies and perceived academic performance. A total of 812 Finnish university students filled in an e-survey at the end of the fall semester (T1) and 316 of them did it again at the end of the spring semester (T2). Latent transition analysis revealed altogether four SWPs (at T1/T2): Moderate (44/42%), Engaged-Satisfied (26/25%), Engaged-Holists (17/17%) and Bored-Burned out (13/16%). Latent transition analysis showed that the detected SWPs were highly stable: 86% of the participants remained in their SWP across the academic year. However, where transitions occurred from one profile to another, they were mainly from better to worse. Furthermore, the results showed that students from Moderate or Engaged-Satisfied profiles reported more beneficial recovery strategies and experienced better academic performance than students from Engaged-Holists or Bored-Burned out profiles. In conclusion, this study highlights that study engagement and holism can co-exist, particularly in performance-oriented, success-tracking, and evaluative environments such as academia, without necessarily advancing academic performance and posing a threat to recovery from study-related stress.