Qualitative Well-Being Narratives of Lower-Primary Teacher Education Students: The Quiet Companion

Teacher shortages across Europe have intensified attention toward the preparation of future educators. The development of teacher education has been the focus of research for decades; however, these investigations have been dominated by the examination of cognitive factors. Although research on university student well-being has expanded, it remains largely dominated by quantitative, model-driven approaches, offering limited insight into how students themselves conceptualize well-being within their educational context. This study, grounded in a positive psychological framework, aims to investigate how teacher education students define and structure university-related well-being in a Hungarian higher education setting. A qualitative design was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 typically final-year lower-primary teacher education students between 2022 and 2024. Data were analyzed using hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis supported by MAXQDA, with procedures implemented to enhance reflexivity and analytic rigor in accordance with COREQ guidelines. Students conceptualized well-being as a dynamic, relationally embedded process rather than a stable psychological state. Their accounts clustered around awareness of well-being determinants (know-what), practical strategies (know-how), and relational resources (know-with-whom). While elements of positive psychology models were implicitly present, definitions were often tentative and grounded in lived experience rather than formal frameworks. The findings suggest that well-being in teacher education is mediated by unevenly developed declarative, procedural, and relational knowledge, highlighting the need for integrative, context-sensitive approaches to fostering student well-being. The study contributes to well-being research by foregrounding students’ subjective well-being narratives within the context of lower-primary teacher education.