On the Longitudinal Relationship Between Swiss Secondary Students’ Well-Being, School Engagement, and Academic Achievement: A Three-Wave Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis

Contemporary education systems face the challenge of fostering academic achievement while also keeping students engaged and maintaining their well-being. Previous research has shown that student well-being, school engagement, and academic achievement are related. However, both student well-being and school engagement tend to decline over the school years, particularly after the transition to secondary school. To investigate how the three constructs are reciprocally related over time, the present study employed a longitudinal random intercept cross-lagged panel model using data from N = 757 Swiss students over three years of lower secondary school. The results revealed reciprocal between-person effects between student well-being, school engagement, and academic achievement across measurement points. Unexpected within-person effects between the measurement points were found. The findings suggest that students with higher well-being are also more engaged and achieve higher grades, but the associations between the constructs may be influenced by third variables.