The mental health of college students and the level of academic achievement: Knowledge about psychological well-being, self-control, and college learning

Abstract

Objectives. This paper aimed to increase knowledge about the psychological well-being and self-control of students during their college years and the impact of these indicators on academic performance.

Sample and settings. The researchers developed and integrated a semester psychological elective course “Successful Learning”. During this course, the students received theoretical information about planning, goal setting, self-discipline, and interaction with others and practised the acquired knowledge in practical classes. Before and after the end of the course, they passed testing according to the questionnaires of psychological well-being (PWB, Gao and McLellan) and self-control (SC, Unger et al.). The Student’s t-test was used for comparison.

Results. The findings showed that self-control and psychological well-being were amenable to improvement. The documented results of previous studies on the impact of self-control and psychological well-being on academic performance were confirmed by ANOVA.

Study limitations. A relatively small sample size and a wide age range of participants could affect the accuracy of the results. The absence of a control group makes it impossible to exclude the influence of external factors on the psychological well-being and self-control of participants.