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Extended Abstract
Background and Aim:
The goal of any educational system is the holistic growth and development of students in cognitive, emotional, and psychomotor domains. Numerous factors influence students' overall growth, development, and performance. Academic well-being refers to the essential services provided to enhance learners' physical, mental, emotional, and social health in an educational environment. High-quality services offered to students lead to improved learning outcomes, as well as increased student satisfaction and loyalty (Sadra et al., 2022). Academic well-being encompasses positive feelings about school and learning, a sense of control over academic tasks, interest in learning, and a sense of academic self-efficacy (Conner & Ripley, 2002).
Moreover, adolescence is a developmental stage during which individuals face multiple changes and challenges (social, psychological, and neurophysiological). At the emotional-social level, adolescents experience more emotional fluctuations and higher levels of negative mood. Therefore, identifying individual and environmental capacities that improve well-being in adolescents can be helpful (Schweizer et al., 2020).
Executive functions are a cognitive capacity that enables students to achieve goal-directed outcomes, such as focusing on and completing learning tasks in a school setting (Spiegel et al., 2021). Cognitive executive functions are identified by three distinct components: inhibitory control, working memory, and shifting, which represent different cognitive abilities (Corbestophori et al., 2019).
Overall, students with higher mastery and adaptability demonstrate greater academic well-being, whereas students who are avoidant and less adaptable show the least academic well-being (Tominen et al., 2020).
In summary, the presence of academic tasks alongside the unique developmental changes during adolescence has made academic well-being a key challenge. Identifying and explaining the variables related to it can provide a foundation for its improvement. Accordingly, cognitive executive functions as an individual factor and the school’s social environment as an environmental factor are among the elements that impact students' academic lives. Based on this, the aim of the present study was to predict students' academic well-being based on cognitive executive functions and the school's social environment. the teaching of behavior modification techniques to mothers and aggression in children with ADHD.
Methods:
The research method was descriptive and correlational. The statistical population of this study consisted of high school students in the second stage of secondary education in Birjand city during the 2023-2024 academic year, which, according to the information obtained from the Birjand Education Department, was approximately 13,000 students. The minimum required sample size, calculated using Super's online model (2023) with an error level of 0.01, a test power of 0.95, and a minimum effect size of 0.10, was estimated to be 304 students. Based on this and considering the potential dropout of participants and to enhance the generalizability of the results, 350 students were randomly selected as the sample.
The inclusion criteria for participants were: willingness and informed consent to participate in the study, being between 15 and 18 years old, no history of psychological disorders, and no history of using psychiatric medication (based on self-reported information from participants). The exclusion criteria included not responding to at least 5% of the questionnaire items and requesting withdrawal from the study while responding to the questionnaires.
To collect research data, after coordination with the Birjand Education Department and obtaining a list of students, 350 students were randomly selected, and the questionnaires were distributed to them at their schools for completion. To facilitate responses, necessary explanations about the questionnaires were provided to the students. Ethical considerations included ensuring participants' consent to take part in the study, maintaining the confidentiality of their information, and allowing them to withdraw from the study at any point while responding to the questionnaires. For data analysis, in addition to Pearson’s correlation test, multiple regression analysis using the simultaneous entry method was applied. All analyses were conducted using SPSS software, version 25.
Results:
According to the results, the tolerance statistic for the predictor variables in the study was higher than 0.40, and the variance inflation factor (VIF) values were less than 5, indicating that there was no concerning multicollinearity between the research variables. Additionally, the Durbin-Watson statistic was 1.52, indicating the independence of errors. The results show a significant relationship between academic well-being and the subscales of cognitive executive functions and the school’s social environment (P < 0.01).
The findings indicate that the following cognitive executive functions significantly predict students' academic well-being: inhibitory control and selective attention (P = 0.001, β = -0.23), decision-making (P = 0.001, β = -0.48), planning (P = 0.02, β = -0.19), sustained attention (P = 0.001, β = -0.30), social cognition (P = 0.001, β = -0.50), and cognitive flexibility (P = 0.000201, β = -0.27). Additionally, the school’s social environment (P = 0.001, β = 0.36) is a significant predictor of students' academic well-being. However, the working memory component of cognitive executive functions does not serve as a significant predictor (P = 0.07, β = -0.09).
Discussion and conclusion:
The aim of this study was to predict students' academic well-being based on cognitive executive functions and the school's social environment. The results showed that, apart from the memory component, the other six components of cognitive executive functions (inhibitory control and selective attention, decision-making, planning, sustained attention, social cognition, and cognitive flexibility) were significant predictors of academic well-being. These findings are consistent with the results of studies by Cortés Pascual et al. (2019), Tominen et al. (2020), Mohammadi et al. (2023), Lim (2019), Nodehi et al. (2016), and Lorusso & Iddo (2017).
The findings also aligned with the research of Davidson et al. (2018), Viscarami et al. (2019), Haji Hasani et al. (2019), and Asgharnezhad et al. (2023). In explaining this finding, it can be noted that the social environment of the school plays a decisive role in students' learning. When students have a positive perception of their classroom environment, they perform better and have more positive attitudes toward what they learn, which in turn increases their enthusiasm for learning.
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