A 4-year Longitudinal Study of Well-being of Chinese University Students in Hong Kong

Abstract

The present longitudinal study explored the development of personal well-being in university students over 4 years. Personal well-being was indexed by multiple indicators including life satisfaction, positive youth development qualities, and university engagement. A sample of 434 students enrolled in the new 4-year undergraduate program in one university in Hong Kong was successfully followed up for 4 years since they started their university study in 2012–2013 academic year. Students completed an online survey on a yearly basis and four waves of data were collected. Results revealed significant changes in most well-being indicators over time with three main observations. First, students’ life satisfaction remained at a stable level during 4 years. Second, most students’ self-reported positive youth development competencies followed a U-shaped developmental trajectory, which was characterised by a dip in the second year and a continuous rebound in the third year and fourth year. Third, students’ university engagement in different aspects showed significant increments in the third and fourth year of university study. The findings underscore the disparate developmental patterns of different aspects of student well-being during university study. This suggests that there is a need to take into account students’ developmental characteristics and related challenges in different stages of university life when develop and implement programs in university to promote student well-being.

General Education Learning Outcomes and Demographic Correlates in University Students in Hong Kong

“…Results of two measures (i.e., Breflective and integrative learning^and Bmoral competence^) were reported elsewhere (Shek et al 2016c). After this step, using the same DVs and within-participant IV, we further performed three separate repeated measures MANOVAs, with each using one of the three demographic variables (gender, family intactness, and economic condition) as the between-participant IV, to explore the potential moderating effects of the respective demographic variable.…”

“…Scales that tap the four dimensions were developed through selecting items of existing measures and drafting a few new items by the research team. Besides, it was noted that some present general education learning outcome measures overlapped with well-being indicators in a recent study (Shek et al 2016c). For example, moral competence was used as one indicator of the developmental assets and reflective and integrative learning as one measure of university engagement.…”

Does Service Leadership Education Contribute to Student Well-Being? A Quasi-Experimental Study Based on Hong Kong University Students

“…Students who took this course experienced an increase in selfleadership, caring disposition, moral character, service leadership beliefs, life satisfaction, and positive youth development (Shek and Lin 2017). However, without a control group, the previous studies could not exclude the possibility of natural growth in leadership capacities (Dugan and Komives 2010) and wellbeing during the college life (Shek et al 2017d). …”

“…Life satisfaction refers to the cognitive evaluation on one's life condition, and such a satisfaction is the essential component of hedonistic well-being (i.e., subjective well-being; Ryan and Deci 2001). Positive youth development pertains to optimal functioning in cognitive, social, emotional, moral and behavioral domains, which is regarded as an indicator of eudaimonic well-being (Shek et al 2017d). We expected that the pretest-posttest change in these outcome variables would vary depending on the experimental vs. control group, insofar, students in the experimental group would experience a greater improvement in leadership capacities (Hypothesis 1) and well-being (Hypothesis 2), compared with those in the control group.…”

Cognitive And Motivational Constructs In Portuguese And Chinese Students: An Exploratory Case Study

“…older American adults (Pavot et al, 1991); young students in Portugal (Pereira, 2013), young students in China (Shek;Yu;Wu;& Chan(2017) and, according to the authors of the scale, slightly above the level of "slightly satisfied".…”