Millicent Aziku, Xinyi Huang, Denis Djekourmane
Online learning climate positively predicted teacher credibility and positive academic emotions, while its direct effects on learning engagement and wellbeing were not significant. Teacher credibility mediated the effect of online learning climate on both learning engagement and wellbeing. While positive academic emotions acted as a mediator in association between online learning climate and learning engagement, no significant mediating effect of positive academic emotions was found for the relationship between online learning climate and wellbeing. In addition, teacher credibility and positive academic emotions sequentially mediated the association between the online learning climate and learning engagement.
INTRODUCTION: Adolescence is a critical developmental period during which young people experience significant academic, emotional, and social challenges. While whole-child developmental frameworks advocate integrating academic achievement with psychosocial wellbeing, limited evidence exists on how these dimensions co-occur to form distinct patterns of adolescent functioning. This study identified multidimensional profiles of adolescent functioning across academic, emotional, and relational domains and examined differences in student background characteristics across these profiles.
METHODS: Data were drawn from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 and included 135,348 adolescents (M age = 15.92 years, SD = 0.28) from 15 countries and economies. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was conducted using indicators of academic achievement, school belonging, teacher support, emotional wellbeing, and flourishing experiences to identify distinct profiles of adolescent functioning. Differences in student background characteristics across the identified profiles were subsequently examined.
RESULTS: Six distinct profiles of adolescent functioning were identified. One profile exhibited high academic achievement but relatively weak school belonging, lower emotional wellbeing, and reduced flourishing experiences, indicating that strong academic performance does not necessarily coincide with positive psychosocial functioning. In contrast, another profile demonstrated comparatively lower academic achievement alongside strong psychosocial functioning. Significant differences in student background characteristics were observed across the six profiles, suggesting that adolescents' developmental experiences vary systematically according to their personal and contextual characteristics.
DISCUSSION: The findings support the multidimensional nature of adolescent development and extend the whole-child developmental framework by demonstrating that academic success and psychosocial wellbeing do not always develop in tandem. These results highlight the importance of educational policies and interventions that simultaneously promote academic learning and students' emotional and relational wellbeing to foster more balanced developmental outcomes.