Dr.Sc.Phil., Professor A.I. Panyukov¹
Dr.Sc.Psych., Professor Y.G. Panyukova²
PhD, Associate Professor T.Sh. Mamedova¹
PhD, Associate Professor I.F. Ponizovkina¹¹Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow
²Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow

Keywords: students’ psychological well-being, academic environment, positive attitudes, autonomy, environmental management, personality growth, life missions, self-acceptance, socio-ecological system, psychological expert examination of learning environment, experimental psychological didactics.

Background. The problem of individual’s well-being has long been in high priority in the national psychology with the ways to mobilize the individual psychological resource required to adapt to the challenging and variable living conditions still being ranked among the topical subjects for research.

Objective of the study was to analyze the issues of students’ psychological (mental) well-being in an academic environment.

Study results and discussion. The national theoretical research with concern to the notion of psychological well-being implies the foreign findings in the subject being systematized and adapted to apply the relevant provisions of the psychological well-being concepts at home [3, 5, 7, 11]. The national empirical research in the psychological well-being domain was launched as soon as the C. Riff Psychological Well-being Rating Scale adapted by T.D. Shevelenkova and P.P. Fesenko was accessible for the researchers. Detailed analysis of the C. Riff Psychological Well-being Rating Scale application history and findings with its adapted express-test version is given in the study by L.V. Zhukovskaya and Y.G. Troshikhina [9]. The express-test version of the C. Riff scale is designed to rate the individual autonomy, competence, personality progress, positive relations, life purposes and self-acceptance.

It is the Psychological Safety of Education Environment Concept that may be considered the most systemic and consistent in applying the theoretical grounds provided by the psychological well-being rating scale to the modern educational environments [1]. As provided by I.A. Baeva, it is the reference importance of the educational environment, degree of satisfaction with the key communication aspects and intolerance to psychological violence in the interpersonal relations of the educational and training process actors that may be ranked the key empirical criteria of a safe educational environment [1, p.7]. When further exploring the problems of the individual psychological well-being in an academic education environment, I.A. Baeva and N.N. Baev complemented the notional base with the construct of the “student’s psychological safety with its three components that are the perceived safety from psychological violence; perceived satisfaction with own accommodation to the environment; and appreciation of own ability to cope with the hardships” [2, p.3]. The construct of psychological safety of an educational environment includes a variety of elementary indicators of an individual psychological well-being. Thus T.N. Berezina offered a concept of an emotionally safe educational environment rated by the students’ genuine emotions including negative (fears, anxiety) and positive (joy) ones [4].

As provided by S.A. Vodyakha in the analysis of the students’ psychological well-being predictors, psychological well-being may be defined as the “sustainable mental quality dominated by positive emotions, good interpersonal relationship, high individual contribution to social processes, purposeful lifestyle and positive individual motivations” [6, p.70]. Methodologically relevant in this context is the research thrust designed to analyze correlations of the student’s psychological well-being with the internal/ external academic progress motivations. T.O. Gordeeva, O.A. Sychev and Y.N. Osin underline in their analysis of the students’ internal/ external academic progress motivations versus their psychological well-being that the latter may be heavily undermined by the individual frustration related to failures in the attempts to satisfy the needs for autonomy, competency and positive relations with the surrounding people. The empirical study data and analyses were used by the researchers to highlight those provisions of the educational process design that could help meet the core needs of the students and form a sound basis for their psychological well-being [8].

One more serious step forward in the attempts to describe the psychological aspects of the academic process and educational environment was the V.A. Yasvin’s educational environment modeling and analyzing method with application of a vector model [14] that was initially designed to assess and model school educational environments and later on successfully applied to academic educational environments. 

The L.Y. Nagornova’s study with its theoretical vector modeling of an academic educational environment was designed to analyze, among other things, the students’ perceptions of the latter [10]. The vector modeling method has been successfully applied by O.B. Sladkova and her students at K.A. Timiryazev State Agricultural Academy to analyze efficiency of the academic educational environment viewed as a socio-ecological system [13].

The experimental psychological didactics developed by V.I. Panin with the environment-determined specialist formation subject offers one more way to design the psychological grounds for a progress facilitating academic educational environment [12].

Conclusion. The methodological approaches analyzed in the study are all focused on a student as the educational process subject; with the psychological provisions for the educational process design focused on the student’s needs and psychological resource to provide a basis for the student’s psychological well-being.

References

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Corresponding author: andryushenko-lil@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyze the issues of the students’ psychological well-being in an academic environment. The study outlines the key avenues for the theoretical and empirical studies of the students’ psychological well-being related issues by means of both individual psychology and academic education psychology.

The key study findings may be summarized as follows. We have analyzed a few basic theoretical provisions for the students’ psychological well-being in the modern academic environment – based on the learning environment psychological safety concept by I.A. Baeva; students’ external/ internal motivations versus their psychological well-being rating method by T.O. Gordeeva, O.A. Sychev, Y.N. Osin; psychological survey of learning environment viewed as a socio-ecological system by G.A. Kovalev; psychological expert examination method by V.A. Yasvin in application to an academic educational environment; and the experimental psychological didactics method by V.I. Panov. A special priority in the study was given to the personality psychological well-being test method by T.D. Shevelenkova and P.P. Fesenko.