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Article

An Exploration of the Relationships between Emotional Well-Being, Learning Behaviour, and Academic Success in Postgraduate Students Who Combine Work with Study

by
Susan Geertshuis
1,* and
Qian Liu
2
1
Business School, University of Auckland, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
2
Higher Education Development Centre, University of Otago, 65 Union Place, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci. 2024, 14(8), 868; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080868
Submission received: 2 July 2024 / Revised: 27 July 2024 / Accepted: 8 August 2024 / Published: 9 August 2024
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Stress Management and Student Well-Being)
Browse Figure
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Abstract

:
There is a growing demand for advanced education from mature learners who seek postgraduate qualifications whilst maintaining career and family responsibilities, but recent research has identified concerns regarding their well-being. This study assesses students’ emotional well-being and examines how well-being is associated with the way students learn and the grades they receive. In a survey of 206 part-time postgraduate students who worked for 30 or more hours a week, we assessed activated aspects of affective well-being (in the form of self-reported anxiety and enthusiasm), learning behaviour, and grades. We observed positive relationships between anxiety, enthusiasm, and learning behaviour and grades. Our results suggest that learning behaviour mediates the relationship between positively activated well-being (enthusiasm) and grades and that negatively activated emotional well-being (anxiety) moderates the effect of lifelong learning on grades. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

1. Introduction

Recent research has identified concerns regarding the well-being of students enrolled in postgraduate-taught programmes who in the UK, for example, comprise approximately 25% of the student body [1]. Workers note the lack of research on the transition to postgraduate studies [2] and on the experiences of part-time postgraduates who, by and large, enter university in an effort to advance their lives and careers [3]. These students are necessarily older than typical undergraduates and, as mature learners, many are combining postgraduate courses with career and family responsibilities [4]. It has been noted that the added load of studying combined with employment and family life places pressure on students that threatens their well-being [5].
Despite a common concern for students’ well-being, there is no shared definition of well-being and research reflects a number of contrasting philosophical and conceptual approaches [6]. There is agreement that emotional well-being is subjective, and it is generally assessed via self-completed surveys, diary studies, or interviews. Much of the work on the emotional well-being of both employees and students focuses on the negative affect such as anxiety, exhaustion, and depression, identifying consequential physical symptoms, burnout, absence, and disengagement in the workplace [7,8], and poor performance and dropout in students [4]. More recently, workers recognised that emotional well-being involves positive as well as negative emotions arguing that well-being is more than the absence of negative emotions. Positive conceptions of emotional well-being include reflections on the frequency or duration of positive emotions such as cheerfulness or contentment [9], cognitive–affective hedonic evaluations such as assessments of satisfaction [10], and/or eudaimonic evaluations or assessments of meaningfulness of life or work [11]. Some workers seek to capture shifting patterns in well-being and the balance of psychological experiences [12]. Others suggest measures of emotional well-being should distinguish emotional activation as well as emotional valence [9,13,14]. Activated aspects of emotional well-being have been associated with employees’ proactive behaviour and engagement [15,16] and work performance [16,17,18,19]. Further debate concerns the timespan over which emotions should be captured, noting that well-being is relatively stable but not fixed, and whether well-being is assessed as a whole-person, whole-context construct or is domain-specific [20]. It is not clear how emotional well-being, however measured, is associated with learning. While it is known that clinically depressed and anxious students are more likely than others to fail and leave education [21], it is also known that the emotional well-being of postgraduates is influential at subclinical levels [22]. For example, Ingram and White [23] reported that despite participants having good overall levels of well-being, their experiences at university had affected their emotional well-being and engagement in learning.In this study, we assessed positive and negative activated dimensions of emotional well-being [24] to assess their relationship with learning behaviour and academic success. In the sections below, we briefly introduce research on the ways mature students are thought to go about learning and their association with grades. We then discuss the potential of emotional well-being as an antecedent to learning and academic outcomes.

2. Hypothesis Development

Adult learners are characterised as emotionally, cognitively, and behaviourally engaged learners, actively involved in their learning [25,26], who are motivated to seek meaning and relevance in their studies and reflect upon their learning, relating new learning to past knowledge and future application [27,28]. Such independent, self-managing, and active approaches to learning have been assessed in a number of ways and through partially aligned theoretical lenses, including patterns of learning [29], self-regulated learning [30], motivated strategies for learning [31], approach to learning [32], and study process [33]. Reflective of cognitive and constructivist theories of learning, these learning behaviours are treated as both ways of learning to aspire to and as skills to develop [34] and as ways of learning that characterise successful and mature learners [35,36]. For example, adult learners in contrast to younger learners have been characterised as independent, capable of self-direction, and as taking responsibility for their own learning [37]. Similarly, mature lifelong learners are described as able to set their own goals, locate information, and manage their own learning [38]. However, these approaches to learning are conceptualised and assessed, and they are generally associated with deeper learning [39,40] and academic success [28]. Thus, we predict the following:
H1. 
Positive learning behaviours are positively predictive of grades.
Researchers point to the importance of emotions in learning, expressing an urgent need to develop our understanding [41,42]. Research attests to the importance and range of positive and negative emotions [43], relating them to motivation and claiming associations between both the ways students learn and the outcomes they achieve. The bulk of this work assesses emotions in the classroom or in relation to tests. These are emotions that may vary within short spans of time and are thought of as amendable to situational and pedagogical manipulation. There is less research examining the effect of more sustained emotion, such as that assessed by emotional well-being, but arguably, these emotions would be more influential and less amenable to manipulation than transient emotions. Trigwell [44] reported positive correlations between whole-course positive emotions, learning behaviours, and achievement. Importantly, Geertshuis [45] found that affective well-being at the beginning of a course was predictive of study behaviours and grades in mature undergraduates. Within the classroom, previous research has shown a range of measures of positive activated affect such as enthusiasm are predictive of the way students approach learning both as measured in the classroom and as measured by emotional well-being [46,47] with more emotionally engaged, enthusiastic, and interested students adopting more positive approaches to learning. Therefore, we predict the following:
H2. 
Positive activated emotional well-being is positively predictive of learning behaviour.
The relationship between negatively activated emotional well-being and learning is not as unequivocal as is the relationship between positively activated well-being and learning [48,49]. Anxiety is thought of as being more likely to reflect extrinsic motivation than intrinsic [50] and is characterised as a negative motivation by others [51]. It is thought that anxiety can lead to an approach or an avoidance response in students and that whether a problem is approached or avoided depends to some extent on estimations of likely success and the importance of success [52]. While extreme anxiety is likely to impair or hinder learning, it is likely that low to moderate levels of anxiety may be adaptive, reflective of a challenge interpretation of stressors and triggering helpful motivation, affect, thinking, and behaviour [53] such as increased effort or help-seeking [51]. More anxious students have been reported as being more successful than others possibly because anxiety reflects a commitment to learning and leads to greater persistence with learning [54]. We tentatively predict the following:
H3. 
Negative activated emotional well-being is associated with learning behaviour, but we do not make predictions regarding its direction.
Studies demonstrating that emotions and emotional well-being are associated with grades have suggested that affect triggers learning behaviours, which in turn influences academic success. The assumption or empirical evidence is that the association between affect and outcomes is mediated by learning strategies such as self-regulation [42,46,55]. Thus, learning behaviours are thought of as mediating the relationship between emotions and grades. That is, activated emotions lead to learning behaviours which in turn lead to academic success. We therefore predict the following:
H4. 
Positive activated emotional well-being is mediated in its relationship with grades by learning behaviour.
H5. 
Negative activated emotional well-being is mediated in its relationship with grades by learning behaviour.
Other works suggest that the causal relationship between affect, learning, and grades is reciprocal [50,56] and further suggest that learning effort or behaviour is to some extent a consequence of cognitive appraisal and discretionary [30]. Such a line of thinking would suggest a moderated relationship between emotional well-being and approach to learning. Thus, it may be that learning behaviours and activated emotions interact so that positive learning behaviours are activated to a degree that varies with levels of enthusiasm or anxiety. Put another way, learners who differ in learning strategies may be differentially affected by positive and negative emotional well-being, and this moderated relationship is predictive of grades. In support of such a line of reasoning, positive emotions (enjoyment and pride) have been posited as moderating emotions such that more positive emotions enhance the relationship between self-regulation and grades [30]. Other workers similarly report that anxiety and learning strategies exhibit an interactive relationship with learning outcomes such that positive strategies have a greater impact on less anxious individuals [53].This line of reasoning would lead to the following predictions:
H6. 
Positive activated emotional well-being is moderated in its relationship with grades by positive learning behaviours.
H7. 
Negative activated emotional well-being is moderated in its relationship with grades by positive learning behaviours.

3. Method

We conducted an online confidential survey as part of a larger study into postgraduate student well-being. The study presented here is a quantitative one.

3.1. Participants

Students enrolled in postgraduate-taught programmes at two universities in New Zealand were invited to participate in the study subject to our selection criteria. The invitations were distributed to approximately 1800 students enrolled in part-time postgraduate programmes who were asked to participate if they were engaged in full-time employment. Two hundred and five complete survey responses were obtained.

3.2. Survey Instrument

Warr’s [24] well-being scale was used to assess affective well-being. This instrument was selected because it captures whole-person, whole-context emotional well-being and was developed for use with employed participants. The instrument consists of 12 items measuring activated and deactivated affect in positive and negative forms. For this research, only the two activated dimensions (enthusiasm and anxiety) were included as they are the aspects of affective well-being that are associated with behaviour (Appendix A). An example item is ‘to what extent have you felt tense’. Responses were recorded following the original 7-point scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 7 (Always).
Participants also completed four items selected from Kirby et al.’s instrument on lifelong learning based on their relevance to independent and self-directed mature learners (Appendix A). An example item was ‘I try to relate academic learning to practical issues’. Responses were recorded following the original 5-point scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).
Students’ self-reported grades, which ranged from D minus to A plus following the university’s marking scheme, were included for analysis. Additionally, questions relating to participants’ age, gender, ethnicity, first language, and number of working hours per week were included in the questionnaire.

3.3. Procedure

Participants were invited by email to participate in the online survey which was open for two weeks. As an incentive, participants were given the opportunity to enter into a draw to win a $100 supermarket voucher.

3.4. Analyses

Data were cleaned to eliminate participants who did not meet selection criteria (e.g., worked less than 30 h) or had omitted survey sections. Quantitative data were analysed in SPSS 28.0 to provide scale and item means, standard deviations, Pearson correlations, and Cronbach alpha scores. Regression analyses were used to investigate associations between scales. SPPSS was used to investigate mediation and moderation effects.

4. Results

4.1. Demographics

In terms of participants’ age distribution, 35% were in their 20s, 31% were in their 30s, 22% were in their 40s, and the remaining 12% were older. In total, 52% were of NZ European ethnicity and 25% identified as Asian. The remainder identified with a broad range of ethnicities. Seventy-five percent of the sample reported that English was their first language. In total, 63% were female, 35% were male, and 2% were other. Ten percent of the sample did not have a first or higher degree. The modal hours worked were 40 h a week and ranged from 30 to 70 h. Fifty-six percent had no dependants, and the remainder had between one and seven dependants with two being the modal response. A quarter of respondents studied for less than 10 h a week, 53% studied for between 10 and 20 h, and 22% reported studying for more than 20 h a week. The modal grade was A minus, which corresponds to a 7 in Table 1 and reflects the mean grades for the cohorts from which our participants were drawn.

4.2. Hypotheses Testing

Table 2 summarises the results concerning the direct effects of enthusiasm on learning behaviour (H1) and grades (H2). The direct effect of enthusiasm on learning behaviour was significant (β = 0.182, p < 0.001). The direct effect of enthusiasm on grades was not significant (β = 0.095, 95% CI (−0.101, 0.290). However, the indirect effect of enthusiasm on grades was found to be statistically significant (β = 0.108, 95% CI (0.0168, 0.2754). Therefore, H1, H2, and H4 were supported.
Table 3 shows the results relating to the direct effect of anxiety on learning behaviour. (H3) The direct effect of anxiety on learning behaviour was not significant (β = 0.095 > 0.05); therefore, there can be no mediated relation between anxiety and grades through learning behaviour, and H3 and H5 are not supported.
Table 4 shows the results of the hierarchical regression analysis conducted to assess H6 and H7 with grades as the dependent variable and learning behaviour, enthusiasm, and anxiety as independent variables. The interaction between enthusiasm and learning behaviour and grades was not significant (β = 0.412 > 0.05); hence, H6 was not supported. Finally, anxiety was positively related to grades (β = 1.359, p = 0.003), and learning behaviour moderated this relationship (β = −0.347, p = 0.002). This result supported H7. Figure 1 describes the moderating effect of positive learning behaviour on the relationship between anxiety and grades.

5. Discussion

Mature postgraduate learners may encounter challenges that younger students do not during university learning, and yet universities have been found to offer them less support than undergraduates [2]. These learners experience re-joining university as requiring considerable adaptation [49] and having significant well-being implications [5]. In the present study, we set out to explore the relationship between activated emotional well-being (both positive and negative), positive learning behaviours, and self-reported grades. We presented seven hypotheses, of which four were confirmed. In the paragraphs that follow, we first outline the results of our hypothesis testing in turn and then explain our study significance with reference to our current understanding.

5.1. Outline of Research Findings

Our results provided support for H1, suggesting that positive learning behaviours were positively predictive of grades. That is, participants who rated themselves higher on positive learning behaviours received higher grades than those who rated themselves lower on positive learning behaviours.
We hypothesised that activated affective well-being would be associated with learning behaviours (H2). Our findings were that enthusiasm was predictive of learning behaviours and the association was positive; that is, participants rating themselves higher on enthusiasm also rated themselves higher on positive learning behaviours than did participants rating themselves lower on enthusiasm. We further predicted that the effect of enthusiasm on grades would be mediated by learning behaviours (H4), and this was confirmed. In contrast, our hypotheses that anxiety would be associated with learning behaviour (H3) and that learning behaviour would mediate the relationship between anxiety and grades (H5) were not confirmed. Anxiety was not found to have a positive relationship with learning behaviours, and therefore, learning behaviours cannot mediate any relationship between anxiety and grades. Thus, while it appears that enthusiasm is motivating positive learning activities that, in turn, influence the grades students receive, anxiety is having no such systematic effect.
In our final analysis (Table 4), we assessed whether the relationships between affective well-being in its positive and negative activated forms and learning behaviours are interactive. A main effect of anxiety was observed as was an interaction between learning behaviour and grades (H7). That is, higher levels of anxiety were associated with higher grades, and a moderating effect was observed for the relationship between anxiety and learning behaviour such that there was an advantage offered by learning behaviours when anxiety levels were low but this advantage is not apparent when anxiety is high (Figure 1). Thus, the effect of learning behaviour on grades is only observed when anxiety is low. The direct effect of enthusiasm on grades was not significant nor was there an interaction between learning behaviours and grades (H6).

5.2. Study Significance

Our findings are consistent with the wider literature on learning behaviour and academic performance [28], showing that positive learning behaviours are associated with higher grades. This study is, however, based on a unique group of learners, who not only are mature in age but also hold full-time, instead of casual or part-time, employment. Collectively, they are a group that have intersections in their age-based roles and well-established professional roles. This group, as researchers have alluded to, is becoming an increasingly important part of the student body [57]. In this sense, our work extends findings on learning behaviours and academic performance to learners that have not been fully recognised in research and institutional practice [2].
Research across different times and contexts suggests that mature learners tend to engage in learning behaviours that are characterised as meaning-oriented [58], highly strategic [44], and therefore sensitive to study efficiency and effectiveness [59]. These behaviours often allow mature learners to achieve non-inferior academic performance when compared to traditional students [58]. Despite these, there have been limited efforts that explore how learning behaviours are contingent upon demands from learning as well as from work and life, although research has recognised the idea of mature students ‘juggling’ work, study, and life, which are framed mostly as barriers to learning [60,61]. Reflective of one’s capacity to cope with stress and manage challenges in life in general, the emotional well-being measures included in our study provide a more nuanced understanding of how learning behaviours are activated by a learner’s overall situation, including but not limited to the context of learning.
Specifically, the findings on affective well-being (both positive and negative) and learning behaviours are largely consistent with the study by Geertshuis [45], confirming that positive activated affective well-being facilitates positive learning behaviours, whereas negative activated affective well-being does not influence learning behaviours. Findings derived from mediation and moderation analyses are also consistent with research on the relationship between affective well-being and academic performance [43], suggesting that activated emotional well-being (both enthusiasm and anxiety) is associated with academic success.
However, our study adds to the current literature by revealing the differential causal relationships through which enthusiasm and anxiety influence learning behaviour and academic success. The effect of anxiety is moderated by positive learning behaviours and the effect of enthusiasm is mediated through positive learning behaviours. In more detail, positive learning behaviours moderate the effect of anxiety on learning such that the positive effect of anxiety on grades is reduced for individuals who score high in positive learning behaviours. At higher levels of anxiety, there appears to be little difference in performance between participants who reported a higher or lower level of positive learning behaviours. At lower levels of anxiety, differences attributable to learning behaviours were seen to emerge. This could be interpreted as suggesting that when anxiety is lower, ‘good’ learning habits are protective and associated with better grades. When anxiety is higher, students’ efforts to deliver good results override differences in whether they generally apply ‘good’ learning strategies or not [53]. Such an interpretation suggests that learning behaviours have both discretionary and habitual elements. Learning behaviours were not found to moderate the relationship between enthusiasm and grades. Here, learning behaviours, as stated above, served as a mediator between enthusiasm and grades. That is, enthusiasm was positively predictive of learning behaviours which in turn were predictive of grades. However, positive learning behaviours did not mediate the relationship between anxiety and grades.

5.3. Limitations and Future Research

It is important to note that our study was based on a small sample, and participants’ modal grade, which was essentially self-reported, was equivalent to an A-. This is a sample of students who are doing well overall and do better when they are more anxious. We also recognise that grades alone are one of many possible measures of learning performance, and that mature learners who work full-time and have family responsibilities may not prioritise grades as markers of their success. We sought to address this issue by looking into the broader impact of postgraduate learning on their well-being, work, and family in another research paper. We are aware that gender identities influence perceptions of affective well-being. However, given the sample size, our analysis could not explore the role of gender on the mediated and moderated relationships between well-being, learning, and grades. This is certainly an area to explore in order to further advance the findings from the present study. Finally, while our study focused on mature postgraduate students who combine full-time work with university study, there is evidence that traditional students, who are supposed to be full-time learners, are increasingly taking on paid work for longer periods of time because of the rising cost of living and concerns about employment upon graduation [62]. It is worth exploring how their affective well-being interacts with learning behaviours and influences academic success.

5.4. Practical Implications

Our findings attest to the importance of positive learning behaviours and the relevance of students’ epistemic emotions. Teachers who enthuse their students might expect them to be curious and intrinsically motivated and so they may deploy more positive and active learning strategies which in turn lead to better learning. Positive learning behaviours may have a greater impact on grades when anxiety levels are low, which is when students motivate themselves or self-regulate in order to actively engage in learning. Our findings also suggest that enhancing healthy anxiety through, for example, competition and achievable goals may encourage students to apply discretionary and positive learning behaviours.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, S.G. and Q.L.; methodology, S.G.; formal analysis, S.G. and Q.L.; investigation, S.G and Q.L.; resources, S.G.; data curation, S.G. and Q.L.; writing—original draft preparation, S.G.; writing—review and editing, S.G. and Q.L.; project administration, S.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Auckland (UAHPEC2631, 2020) and of the University of Otago (D21/282, 2021).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Anonymised data can be made available on request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A. Measurement Instrument

  • Anxiety
Thinking about how you have felt in the past 4 weeks:
To what extent have you felt tense?
To what extent have you felt uneasy?
To what extent have you felt worried?
  • Enthusiasm
Thinking about how you have felt in the past 4 weeks:
To what extent have you felt cheerful?
To what extent have you felt optimistic?
To what extent have you felt enthusiastic?
  • Learning behaviour
Thinking of the way you learn, please rate the following:
I feel I am a self-directed learner
It is my responsibility to make sense of what I learn at university
I try to relate academic learning to practical issues
When I approach new material I try to relate it to what I already know

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Education 14 00868 g001
Figure 1. The moderating effect of learning behaviour on the association between anxiety and grades.
Figure 1. The moderating effect of learning behaviour on the association between anxiety and grades.
Education 14 00868 g001
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability measures.
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability measures.
VariablesMeanSD1234
1. Grades7.731.301
2. Learning behaviour4.040.5590.276 **(0.681)
3. Enthusiasm4.560.9070.144 *0.252 *(0.867)
4. Anxiety4.381.185−0.0130.033−0.429 **(0.889)
Note: n = 206; SD = standard deviation; items in brackets are Cronbach α; ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05.
Table 2. Hierarchical regression to examine H1, H2, and H4.
Table 2. Hierarchical regression to examine H1, H2, and H4.
Learning BehaviourGrades
AntecedentβSEpβSEp
Enthusiasm0.1820.0410.0010.0950.100ns
Learning behaviour 0.5930.1640.001
Constant3.3150.1890.0014.890.1640.001
R2 = 0.090R2 = 0.080
F(1, 204) = 20.11, p < 0.001F(2203) = 8.853, p < 0.001
Note: β = regression coefficient; SE = standard errors; ns = not significant.
Table 3. Hierarchical regression to examine H3 and H5.
Table 3. Hierarchical regression to examine H3 and H5.
Learning Behaviour
AntecedentβSEp
Anxiety−0.0220.050ns
Constant3.9530.2310.001
R2 = 0.002
F(1, 204) = 0.191, p > 0.05
Note: β = regression coefficient; SE = standard errors; ns = not significant.
Table 4. Regression analysis to examine H1, H6, and H7.
Table 4. Regression analysis to examine H1, H6, and H7.
VariablesβSE95% CIpΔR2
LLUL
Learning behaviour2.4850.5321.4353.5340.001
Anxiety1.3590.4480.4762.2420.003
Learning behaviour x Anxiety −0.3470.111−0.566−0.1280.0020.041
Enthusiasm0.4120.492−0.5571.382ns
Learning behaviour x Enthusiasm−0.1050.1190.380−0.341ns0.003
R2 = 0.150
F(1, 200) = 7.045, p < 0.001
Note: β = regression coefficient; SE = standard errors; CI = confidence intervals; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit; ns = not significant.
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Geertshuis, S.; Liu, Q. An Exploration of the Relationships between Emotional Well-Being, Learning Behaviour, and Academic Success in Postgraduate Students Who Combine Work with Study. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 868. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080868

AMA Style

Geertshuis S, Liu Q. An Exploration of the Relationships between Emotional Well-Being, Learning Behaviour, and Academic Success in Postgraduate Students Who Combine Work with Study. Education Sciences. 2024; 14(8):868. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080868

Chicago/Turabian Style

Geertshuis, Susan, and Qian Liu. 2024. "An Exploration of the Relationships between Emotional Well-Being, Learning Behaviour, and Academic Success in Postgraduate Students Who Combine Work with Study" Education Sciences 14, no. 8: 868. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14080868

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