High School Pupils’ Academic Achievement, Self-regulation (Locomotion and Assessment), and Psychological Well-Being
Author and article information
Abstract
Background: Education plays an important role on a personal level because it is related to personal control, a healthy lifestyle, greater income, employment, interpersonal relations, and social support (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003). Self-regulation is the procedure implemented by an individual striving to reach a goal and consists of two inter-related strategies: (1) the identification of the desired out-come and the appraisal of procedures to reach the desired goal (i.e., assessment), and (2) the selection between available approaches to reach the goal and the commitment to the chosen approaches until the goal is reached (i.e., locomotion) (Kruglanski et al, 2000). Self-regulation plays an essential role in academic achievement (Kruglanski et al 1994, 2000). Psychological well-being is a multi-faceted concept composed of six different intra-personal characteristics that describe the fully functional individual (Ryff, 1989). These factors are: positive relationships with others, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth. We aimed to study the relationship between academic achievement and self-regulation and psychological well-being in Swedish high school pupils.
Method: Participants were 160 Swedish high school pupils (111 boys and 49 girls) with an age mean of 17.74 (sd = 1.29). We used the Assessment and Locomotion Scales (Kruglanski et al., 2000) to measure self-regulation and Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scales short version (Clark et al., 2001) to measure well-being. Academic achievement was operationalized through pupils’ final grades in Swedish, Mathematics, English, and Physical Education. The courses take place during either one or two semesters and the grading scale ranges from F = fail to A = pass with distinction.
Results: Final grades in Swedish were positively related to two psychological well-being scales: self-acceptance and personal growth; and to the self-regulation strategy of assessment. Final grades in Mathematics were positively related to three psychological well-being scales: self-acceptance, autonomy, and personal growth; and also to assessment. Final grades in English were positively related to one psychological well-being scale: personal growth; and also to assessment. Final grades in Physical Education were positively related to four psychological well-being scales: environmental mastery, self-acceptance, autonomy, and personal growth; and also to the self-regulation strategy of locomotion.
Conclusions: A profile consisting of assessment orientation combined with self-acceptance and personal growth leads to the best study results. This understanding is important when supporting pupils in achieving the best possible results in school and thus lay the formation for a continued successful life.
Cite this as
2014. High School Pupils’ Academic Achievement, Self-regulation (Locomotion and Assessment), and Psychological Well-Being. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e219v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.219v1Sections
Additional Information
Competing Interests
The authors declare that there are no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Danilo Garcia conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Alexander Jimmefors performed the experiments, analyzed the data, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Lillemor Adrianson wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Fariba Mousavi wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Patricia Rosenberg wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Trevor Archer conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of related data:
Researchgate
Funding
This research was supported by the Stiftelsens Kempe-Carlgrenska Fonden. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
