Juggling With Both Hands Tied Behind My Back: Teachers’ Views and Experiences of the Tensions Between Student Well-Being Concerns and Academic Performance Improvement Agendas

Abstract

Youth mental health in Australia is concerning with 25% of young people reported as experiencing mental health issues in a 12-month period. Meanwhile, Australian schools march forward with academic improvement agendas. Survey research conducted among primary and secondary school teachers, most drawn from the Australian state of Queensland, revealed that although teachers value student well-being initiatives, they are experiencing very real tensions dealing with student mental health concerns and performance targets, which is complicated by a lack of confidence in the efficacy of well-being programs in schools. These findings raise concerns about the need for government authorities, school leaders, and teacher education providers to further investigate the need for balance between school performance improvement agendas and student well-being concerns.

The role of teachers in mitigating student stress to progress learning

“…The data collection methods are reflective of the time, financial and geographic constraints of the researchers. Nevertheless, participants' responses helped the researchers better understand teachers' perspectives and experiences of managing student wellbeing concerns and academic pressures and stresses, and the findings from this study deepen previous research findings (Willis et al, 2019).…”

“…Recent research shows teachers actively mitigate student stress for the sake of academic performance (Willis et al, 2019) and play important roles in facilitating functional neural programming for students who have experienced stress and/or trauma (Cozolino, 2013;Willis & Nagel, 2015). Teachers often adapt their practices to help students reach performativity targets (Ball, 2003;Day & Gu, 2007;Edmondson et al, 2016).…”

“…The study investigated teachers' experiences and perspectives of the pressures and stresses students encounter, with a specific focus on how teachers mitigate student stress for the purpose of mediating Mental health issues. Teachers work directly with student mental health issues and wellbeing concerns in the provision of education (McGrath & Van Bergen, 2015;Willis et al, 2019). A report for the Australian Government Department of Education and Training that used data from the Young Minds Matter survey, showed one in seven school students in Australia (approximate ages 5-18 years) lives with a mental health disorder (Goodsell et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, Australian students' individual literacy and numeracy scores are compared to national averages in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in NAPLAN testing (National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy, 2016) and school NAPLAN scores are ranked on the My School V R website (ACARA, n.d.). Teachers cite the stresses of performativity as negatively affecting student wellbeing (Willis et al, 2019). For some students, these pressures convert to negative stress.…”

The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Student Well-Being and the Mediating Role of the University Support: Evidence From France, Germany, Russia, and the UK

“…Student well-being could be understood as "reduction in stress, enhanced experienced meaning and engagement in the classroom, and ultimately, heightened satisfaction with life" (Flinchbaugh et al, 2012, p. 191). Student well-being includes concepts of motivation, identity, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-regulation in the context of learning and matriculating through the program to get a degree (Willis et al, 2019). Student well-being has shown to increase their engagement in learning activities, meaning making, a sense of belonging, positive relationships with others, autonomy, and competencies (Sortheix and Lönnqvist, 2015;Baik et al, 2016;Cox and Brewster, 2020) and reduce their burn-out, stress, frustration, dissatisfaction, and withdrawal from active learning (Flinchbaugh et al, 2012;Mokgele and Rothman, 2014;Yazici et al, 2016).…”