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Investigating the Relationship between Well-Being, Engagement and Learning Experiences among South African Publicly Funded Students in Higher Education

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Abstract

Student engagement and positive learning experiences are important determinants of academic performance in higher education. While the role of well-being is also acknowledged, it is not comprehensively addressed as an antecedent for both engagement and learning experience. In fact, interventions to improve academic performance in higher education tend to ignore well-being support. A further problem relates to the dominance of literature from the Global North predicated on relationships between well-being, engagement and learning experience among students with much higher levels of socio-economic status. This stands as a severe limitation in identifying the right kinds of interventions towards ensuring better learning outcomes for African higher education students. Using structural equation modelling, we explored the relationship between psychological and social well-being with student engagement and learning experiences among a sample of 6877 South African higher education students (females = 54.7%; mean age = 23.83; SD = 4.89). Our findings showed that both facets of well-being were positively related to student engagement and learning experiences highlighting psychological and social well-being promotion as a clear responsibility of higher education systems.

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  • Educational Philosophy
  • Educational Research
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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. NSFAS refers to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme which administers the South African Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) bursary scheme for University and TVET College students in South Africa. The bursary is considered quite progressive internationally as it covers not only tuition but allowances for food, learning devices, accommodation, personal care and travel (NSFAS, 2017, 2020). It is aimed specifically at students from poor households in an effort to address intergenerational poverty, inequality and unemployment in the country.

Abbreviations

PWB:
Psychological well-being
SWB:
Social well-being
SE:
Student engagement
SLE:
Student learning experiences
MHC:
Mental health continuum
OLIS:
Original learning indicators scale
UWES-9S:
Utrecht work engagement scale for students

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the National Student Financial Aid Scheme for the support of the research project and initial report that is linked to this specific investigation.

Funding

Not applicable.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Angelina Wilson Fadiji

  2. Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

    Angelina Wilson Fadiji & Amanda Cromhout

  3. Equitable Education and Economies Division, Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa

    Angelique Wildschut

  4. Department of Sociology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Angelique Wildschut

  5. Department of Psychology, University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Placidia Shoko

Contributions

[AWF and AW] helped in conceptualisation, [AWF and AW] helped in methodology; [AC] helped in formal analysis and investigation; [AWF and AW, PS] contributed to writing—original draft preparation; [all authors] contributed to writing—review and editing; funding acquisition is [not applicable]; resources are [not applicable] and supervision is [not applicable].

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Angelina Wilson Fadiji.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Ethics approval

The study was approved by the Human Sciences Research Council Ethics Committee and (REC 3/23/09/20) the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

Research participants in this study have provided permission for the emerging data to be published in academic journals.

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Cite this article

Wilson Fadiji, A., Wildschut, A., Cromhout, A. et al. Investigating the Relationship between Well-Being, Engagement and Learning Experiences among South African Publicly Funded Students in Higher Education. Psychol Stud (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-025-00833-6

  • Received
  • Accepted
  • Published
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-025-00833-6

Keywords

  • Engagement
  • Learning experiences
  • Psychological well-being
  • Social well-being
  • Disadvantaged students
  • South Africa

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