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How does university teaching shape student wellbeing?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Across five subjects, students said wellbeing hinged less on wellness slides alone and more on scaffolded challenge, support, and social connection.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Qualitative / archival — Interviews and focus groups across five subjects with wellbeing-linked modules
- N
- N=57 · 57 undergraduates (plus 4-student nursing pilot interviews)
- Population
- Undergraduates across Psychology, English, Nursing, International Politics, and War Studies
- Outcome
- Wellbeing linked to scaffolded challenge, support, and social connection beyond wellness content
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
Three themes emerged: embedding wellbeing content; assessment, challenge, and academic support; and social connection. Students welcomed challenge when scaffolded and emphasized relationships with staff and peers as central to wellbeing.
Methodology
Researchers interviewed and ran focus groups with a convenience sample of 57 undergraduates recruited from modules that already included wellbeing elements across Psychology, English, Nursing, International Politics, and War Studies at a large London university.
Limitations
Modules were not designed as a controlled wellbeing intervention for the study, and findings are qualitative perceptions from one university during 2020–2021. Causal effects on mental-health diagnoses are not measured.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Fifty-seven London undergraduates from modules that already included wellbeing elements (Psychology, English, Nursing, International Politics, War Studies; four nursing students piloted) produced three interview/focus-group themes: embedding wellbeing content; assessment, challenge and academic support; and social connection. Students welcomed scaffolded challenge and emphasised staff and peer relationships. Modules were not a controlled wellbeing trial; mental-health diagnoses were not measured.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Fifty-seven London undergraduates (plus a four-nurse interview pilot) from modules that already included wellbeing elements produced three themes: embedding wellbeing content; assessment, challenge and support; and social connection. Focus groups and interviews here are perceptions of existing modules, not a controlled wellbeing intervention, and they do not measure mental-health diagnoses.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
What 'practice' means diverges. TeachLivE groups (21 students; 3 found it unrealistic) discuss simulated classroom management. Wellbeing groups discuss assessment challenge and relationships in existing modules. Neither is a test that the practice raised pupil or clinical outcomes. Collapsing them as 'focus groups show teacher education works' erases the object of talk.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
What 'practice' means diverges. TeachLivE groups (21 students; 3 found it unrealistic) discuss simulated classroom management. Wellbeing groups discuss assessment challenge and relationships in existing modules. Neither is a test that the practice raised pupil or clinical outcomes. Collapsing them as 'focus groups show teacher education works' erases the object of talk.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.