An exploration of the relationship between emotional well-being and academic engagement among female students in a single sex post-primary school in Ireland

The overall aim of this qualitative research was to explore the relationship between emotional well-being and academic engagement amongst students during the second year of post-primary education. Student well-being is of central importance in education (DES 2017) and guidance counsellors are regularly faced with difficulties in second year including issues with friends, loss of interest and motivation, dissatisfaction with school and disengagement from learning. This research study focuses on capturing the lived experiences of students through focus group interviews, and guidance counsellors through face to face interviews, in order to gain insights and inform future policy and practice in guidance counselling. The research is a case study involving 25 second year student participants from the case study school and 3 guidance counsellors from other schools. The researcher considers that a gap for such interpretivist research exists in light of current literature related to adolescent well-being and mental health promotion (DCYA 2017, DES 2017, OECD 2015, WHO 2016). From a policy and practice perspective, it is clear that adolescents need help with emotional difficulties such as stress and anxiety (OECD 2015). The key findings that emerged confirm that there is a significant relationship between students’ emotional well-being and their academic engagement during second year. The study shows that students who are confident, happy, and emotionally healthy (DES 2015) during second year, cope better with life’s challenges (WHO 2016) and are more likely to remain academically engaged.