Young People’s Wellbeing and School Engagement in Kazakhstan Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education Cambridge University Faculty of Education Astana, April 2017

Wellbeing and School Engagement What is wellbeing? Physical, financial, environmental, psychological What is school engagement? Turning up – physically, socially and mentally Learning in school and across a lifetime Are there universal principles? Do these variables depend on time, culture and context?

Research project: to model young people’s wellbeing in Kazakhstan Phase 1 May 2015: scoping visit to examine the performance of a UK wellbeing scale (McLellan & Seward, 2014) and to conduct first inquiry into how psychological wellbeing in schools is conceived and managed Phases 2 & 3 November 2015 and May 2016: application of improved and contextualised psychological wellbeing scale and more detailed inquiry into the constructs of wellbeing in Kazakhstan Phase 4 October 2016: final application of the wellbeing scale to assess its year-on-year validity

Mixed methods’ sample sizes

Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435-356 BC) Psychological Wellbeing: Hedonic Approaches - Subjective Wellbeing (Feelings) Hedonism Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435-356 BC) ‘Subjective well-being is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction.’ Diener et al, 1999

Psychological Wellbeing: Eudaimonic Approaches (Functioning) Relatedness Autonomy Competence Eudaimonia: Activity expressing virtue Aristotle (384–322 BC) Wellbeing

Languages spoken in the region

Phase 1: Focus groups and interview data ‘one shanyrak’ A FG of Vice Principals: Our students don’t forget their Uighur culture and Uighur customs – this is what is particular for us. But in other spheres there are not any differences. For instance, they had a competition of patriotic upbringing among 22 schools and we got 1st prize… Moreover we have the annual competition which is called “under one shanyrak” and there our students demonstrate culture of different nationalities: Russian, Kazakh, Uighur, Tatar, Korean. The students perform there, cite poems, sing songs, show national clothes and so on…

Phase 1 Focus groups and interview data: ‘one shanyrak’

One model of Psychological Wellbeing Self-perceptions of own psychological health formed from how one feels and how one functions – a state with longevity not mere moods

Phase 1 Survey data: Confirmatory Factor Analysis (UK scale used)

Phase 2: What was missing in the model? Focus Group member 1 (female, Russian): Happiness is my family, smiles of my family, and when my family is happy and healthy. This is very important for me, it makes me happy, also, music brings me happiness. It inspires me to new ideas, encourages me when I am in low spirit... Among negatives, I drew bad weather that influences my mood, my condition too. And I am against war, because it destroys the world and affects our health, our physical condition. Also drugs have bad influence on our life, on people, involve more people. It is not good. And different murders, robberies can happen under this addictive substance.

Phase 3: Place and community Interviewee (male, Kazakh at rural school): Living in a village helps you become a good person because we are supportive of each other. Next is clean ecology. It is good for health and I value health over everything else because if I am healthy I can achieve any goal. Living in village develops your humanity and human values. For this reason I am very happy to have grown up in a village.

Phase 4 Survey data: the final model CMIN/CFI = 4.34 RMSEA = 0.043 Hoelter (0.01) > 523

The Psychological Wellbeing Model Relatedness/Hedonism Competence/ Eudaimonism Negative affect External validation Social intelligence Personal Beliefs Not taking the person out of the situation.. health, money and access to support, if in need, are also critical and clearly important. Cushions to assist resilience. The roller-coaster effect mitigated.

Full wellbeing model CMIN/df 7.254 RMSEA 0.060 Hoelter (0.05) 286

Psychological Wellbeing Full Wellbeing Model Overall Wellbeing Psychological Wellbeing Physical Wellbeing Physical environment Social support Not taking the person out of the situation.. health, money and access to support, if in need, are also critical and clearly important. Cushions to assist resilience. The roller-coaster effect mitigated.

School Engagement

Our School Engagement model based on Martin (2015)

School Engagement Model Positive attitude Negative attitude and behaviours Perceived Teachers’ encouragement Positive behaviour Not taking the person out of the situation.. health, money and access to support, if in need, are also critical and clearly important. Cushions to assist resilience. The roller-coaster effect mitigated.

Psychological Wellbeing factors School Engagement factors Correlation coefficients of Psychological Wellbeing with School Engagement   Psychological Wellbeing factors School Engagement factors A B C D E F 1 2 3 4 Relatedness (Hedonic) .521 -.054* .300 .448 -.353 .359 .353 -.190 .465 Competence (Eudaimonic) -.169 .492 .570 -.382 .374 -.271 .459 Negative Affect -.055* -.107 .305 -.078* n.s. .232 Personal Beliefs .391 -.159 .322 .295 -.106 .270 External Validation -.377 .351 .414 -.269 .436 Low Social Intelligence -.210 -.192 .427 -.339 Adaptive Cognitions -.078 .433 -.120 .402 Adaptive Behaviours -.137 .483 Maladaptive factors -.206 Teachers’ Encouragement

Group Differences – Gender   Young men (N = 614) Young women (N= 818) Significant difference Psychological Wellbeing A Relatedness (Hedonic) 4.07 4.09 p > .05 B Competence (Eudaimonic) 4.03 3.91 p = .001 C Negative Affect 2.49 2.60 p = .023 D Personal Beliefs 3.98 4.02 E External Validation 3.82 3.81 F Low Social Intelligence 2.33 2.41 p = .033 Social Support 4.20 4.21 Physical Health perceptions 3.69 p < .001 Physical Environment 4.00 3.92 p = .038   Young men Young women Significant difference School Engagement 1 Adaptive Cognitions 4.24 4.40 p < .001 2 Adaptive Behaviours 3.62 3.68 p > .05 3 Maladaptive factors 2.69 2.76 4 Teachers’ Encouragement 3.75

Constancy of Psychological Wellbeing by Grade

Constancy of School Engagement by Grade

Significant differences Variations by Grade   Grade 9 10 11 or 12 Significant differences overall WB - Social support 4.15 4.26 4.21 G9 and G10 overall WB - Health perceptions 3.91 3.85 3.79 G9 and G11-12 Overall WB - Environs 4.00 3.99 3.88 SE - Maladaptive cog/behav 2.75 2.67 2.81 G10 and G11-12

Group Differences – Rural versus Urban - G9 only   Urban (clusters 2-3) (N =331 ) Rural (clusters 4-5) (N =296) Significant difference Psychological Wellbeing A Relatedness (Hedonic) 4.05 4.16 p = .045 B Competence (Eudaimonic) 3.89 4.07 p = .002 C Negative Affect 2.51 2.52 p > .05 D Personal Beliefs 3.92 4.02 E External Validation 3.71 p = .005 F Low Social Intelligence 2.43 2.32 Social Support 4.15 4.18 Physical Health perceptions 4.03 p = .017 Physical Environment 4.00   Urban (clusters 2-3) Rural (clusters 4-5) Significant difference School Engagement 1 Adaptive Cognitions 4.27 4.29 p > .05 2 Adaptive Behaviours 3.74 3 Maladaptive factors 2.73 2.77 4 Teachers’ Encouragement 3.68 3.88 p = .010

Group Differences – Hobbies or not   Does hobbies (N = 405) Does not do hobbies or not important (N = 202) Significant difference Psychological Wellbeing A Relatedness (Hedonic) 4.09 4.08 p > .05 B Competence (Eudaimonic) 3.97 3.94 C Negative Affect 2.47 2.63 p = .034 D Personal Beliefs 3.95 E External Validation 3.83 3.68 p = .024 F Low Social Intelligence 2.33 p = .042 Social Support 4.16 4.12 Physical Health perceptions 3.89 Physical Environment 4.04 3.93   Does hobbies Does not do hobbies or not important Significant difference School Engagement 1 Adaptive Cognitions 4.29 4.23 p > .05 2 Adaptive Behaviours 3.68 3.78 3 Maladaptive factors 2.70 2.79 4 Teachers’ Encouragement 3.77 3.72