Toward a Multidimensional Understanding of Evidence About Wellbeing in Education

Calls for evidence-based practice in wellbeing in education have expanded rapidly across research, policy and professional discourse. Yet the concept of evidence in this field often remains under-theorised and inconsistently applied. Wellbeing in education is a complex and multidisciplinary domain, informed by psychology, education, sociology, public health and philosophy and encompassing outcomes, lived experiences, relationships and contextual conditions. As a result, narrow hierarchies of evidence borrowed from medical or interventionist traditions may be insufficient for capturing the complexity of educational wellbeing. This conceptual article develops a Multidimensional Evidence Framework for understanding evidence about wellbeing in education. Drawing on a critical realist and pragmatic pluralist theoretical frame, this article proposes that robust evidence in this field includes descriptive, causal, contextual and implementation, and experiential and interpretive forms of evidence, considered through a cross-cutting equity and ethical lens. It further distinguishes between evidence about wellbeing, evidence for wellbeing practice and evidence of wellbeing impact. A Multidimensional Evidence Framework is proposed to support more rigorous and conceptually coherent research, policy and practice by integrating these complementary evidence domains with the questions of evidence of what, for whom, and for what purpose.