Multi-level analysis of teens' psychological well-being by individual agency, school culture and family support

The research purpose was to determine the contribution of individual agency, school culture and family support in predicting psychological well being variance in high school students. The research design is descriptive and correlational, and the statistical population included all high school students in the cities of Ramsar and Tonekabon in northern Iran (N= 7500). By random cluster sampling, 707 persons were selected from six areas, 15 girls’ high schools and 12 boys’ high schools were thus selected. The following questionnaires were used for data collection: The Agency Scale (Jaaskela, Poikkeus, Vasalampi, Valleala & Rasku-Puttonen, 2016); The Psychological Well -being Scale (Ryff, 1989); The School Culture Scale (Higgins & Sadh, 1997) and the Family Support Scale (Sands & Plunkett, 2005). Multi-Level Modeling was used for statistical analysis. The results of analysis showed that personal agency (β=0.32, P=0.003), school culture (β=0.60, p=0.001) and family support (β=0.43, p=0.004), were able to predict a part of psychological well-being variance in students. It is argued that agency is the best predictor of psychological well-being in high school students and that social support, having proper relationships with teachers and friends, appropriate school facilities and parents' support also play an important role in students’ psychological well-being. Hence, it is necessary to develop psychological well-being in students by upgrading these factors.