Peculiarities And Models Of Psychological Well-Being Of Technical University Student

Abstract

In the article, the problem of student psychological well-being, its peculiarities and models as well as their connection with life trueness experience were considered. The increase of student ill-being can lead to insufficient formedness of future specialist competences and influence all aspects of a student’s life. The psychological well-being levels of the students of different years of study like high, average and low ones were revealed. The analysis and comparison of inner structures of student psychological well-being depending on the level according to some constituents were carried out. The elements are positive relations with others, autonomy, environment control, personal growth, life goals, self-acceptance. Inside each level of psychological well-being, there is a concatenation of life trueness experience in general and its constituents like originality, sincerity, precision, satisfaction, authenticity and realization. Each level of student psychological well-being has its subjective well-being model, based on the success and happiness emotional experience, forming behavioural stereotypes in learning and extra-curricular activities, scientific and creative ones. Success and its understanding are compared. Some peculiarities of students’ life difficulty experience and possible behavioural responses are found out. There are positive relations between psychological well-being and authenticity, students’ life success.

Keywords: Psychological well-beinghealthlife truenesssuccessdifficultiesstudents

Introduction

A eudemonistic approach in psychological well-being consideration is psychological and is expressed by the self-determination theory, in which individual abilities to realize and experience a choice are defined by inner and exterior motivation. The subject of psychological well-being has been developed by psychologists in the humanistic direction.

Ryff (2018) generalized the theories of humanistic direction in the studies of the psychological well-being problem. She singled out some basic elements of psychological well-being (self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environment control, a purpose in life, personal growth (Ryff, 2018). The parameters of psychological well-being are reflected in the proceedings of Fesenko (Fesenko, Shevelenkova, 2005). The author discusses it as a particularly subjective phenomenon, represented by integral happiness experience, self and life satisfaction.

The representatives of positive psychology considered the subjective well-being through the prism of emotions, M.E.P Seligman introduced a notion of authentic happiness, connecting these concepts.

The model of psychological well-being was discussed by Voronina (2005). She considered the levels of psychological well-being as psychosomatic, psychic, psychological health (Voronina, 2005).

Summarizing theoretical concepts of psychological well-being, it is necessary to note that their understanding of a person from the perspective of such oppositely directed phenomena as «well-being – ill-being» makes it possible to analyse psychological well-being by the way of criteria, represented by a complex of manifestations: destructiveness, including victim behavior; the phenomenon of a victim personality and adaptive process breach (Andronnikova & Veterok, 2016).

To achieve psychological well-being of a personality, it is necessary to know how to overcome difficulties and to experience success as a result of it. It is important to draw attention to forming a favourable image of I and a favourable image of another person. The ability to concentrate one’s consciousness on one’s inner world and the ability to differentiate, describe, understand and show emotions, to understand cause-and-effect relations of one’s behavior and the behavior of others are of relevance. There should be self-actualization, readiness for accepting new situations and inner changing, the ability to solve problems. The psychological well-being is a phenomenon to be aimed at, on the one hand, which is a logical consequence of social changes and serves for preserving personal balance in the society of a constant risk (Andronnikova & Veterok, 2016).

An adult personality can experience different difficulties and crises. The psychological well-being, according to Fesenko and Shevelenkova (2005), is meaningful for a surviving person oneself, as it is connected with basic human values as well as such ordinary concepts like «happiness», «happy life» and suchlike, and depends on the system of inner coordinates of the experience of this feeling(Fesenko, Shevelenkova, 2005).

The category and the concept of «happiness» in the Cambridge English dictionary are defined as a feeling connected with pleasure and satisfaction.

Life challenges are reality of every person. Jaspers mentions that all people have to suffer in a varying degree (Jaspers, 1994).

Is it possible to connect psychological well-being with sufferings? Kierkegaard (1995) wrote, «spiritual work entirely satisfies me and with joy allows one to be occupied with work of love, assuming that it fascinates me in full. I also see my life: bringing the good to people, gladness and some pleasant things, whereas I am overfilled with pain that cannot be healed with any remedy, but only with developmental work of my consciousness». Everything, told by one, sounds vitally. Facing pain, a person can find a clue to overcome suffering.

Nagel (1986) proved that people would rather prefer their life, though worn out by problems, than to senseless satisfaction, which is totally possible.

The more complicated approach to the idea of happiness and well-being was developed by Csikszentmihalyi (1999), in which the author mentioned about the psychology of the most favourable than positive experience. He introduced the notion of «stream» as experience that makes us feel at the peak.

A. Furnham, C. Brewin indicate that «well-being» is a multiple-factor construct, being a complex correlation of culturral, social, psychological, physical, economic and spiritual factors. It is a complicated product, the result of genetic predisposition influence, environment and some peculiarities of individual development (Furnham & Brewin, 1990). 

Kovalyov (2014) worked out an idea of well-being as a combination of success and happiness, suggesting that well-being is estimated according to 5 parameters: health, love, relationships, work, money. He, following the concepts of E. Berne, makes people’s classification in the framework of well-being. He divides them into successful (in turn, sublevels are singled out as follows: absolute or «princes», complete and weak or «fragile» ones), average performers (strong, complete and weak ones) and problem ones (scarcely perfect, problem and totally problem).

Studentship as a separate age and social-psychological category is discriminated in science relatively recently in the 1960-s by the Leningrad psychological school under the supervision of B.G. Ananiev (1974) studying adult psychophysiological functions. As an age group, studentship refers to the stages of adult development, being a transient phase from puberty to maturity», and is defined as late youth - early maturity (at the age of 18-25). The separation of studentship within the maturity-adulthood epoch is based on the social-psychological approach.

The problem of students’ psychological well-being was studied by Grigorenko (2009). The main factors influencing this characteristic were ascertained distinguishing age crises as a basis of them (Shirinskaya, 2014; Grigorenko, 2009; Fesenko & Shevelenkova, 2005).

In the research of existential psychology of maturity, Sapogova (2013) introduces the concept of «life trueness» as a special emotional experience of own life, consisting of 6 elements. The first one is originality, i.e. emotional experience of own life as a different one from others’ life. The life is not on someone’s model. It is not imitative, but independent. The second element is sincerity, i.e. the absence of the falseness experience, falsification, vainglory life. The perception of it is own, natural, plain in favour of social appraisals. The third one is accuracy, i.e. the experience of right, accurateness, faithfulness, the correctness of the way of living. The forth one is satisfaction with own life in the majority of aspects. The fifth element is authenticity, i.e. the experience of own life conformance with inner self-feeling. The sixth one is realization in life, self-embodiment.

At the stage of getting professional education, students, becoming mature, are vulnerable to the impact of destructive factors. Experiencing psychological ill-being, they lose interest in the academic activity and student life, life trueness that surely affects the level of competence of a future specialist.

Problem Statement

Modern researchers of the problem of personality psychological well-being observe unsatisfactory state of affairs in this field, even a tragic one. Moreover, they consider it not only as a medical problem but also social one (Reshetnikov, 2015; Idobaeva, 2001). Personality psychological well-being depends on a great number of life factors of a modern person, the necessity of working hard, processing enormous data flows, patterning one's behaviour in the more and more complicate world. The destructive sides of the outer world lead to the worsening of psychological well-being and, in general, health.

Modern youth demands special attention, as it is important to draw attention to the preservation and strengthening personality sanogenic potential in the educational system. To a large extent, this potential is determined by well-being experience. Lowering of a sense of satisfaction results in stress, constraint, embodied stiffness, emotional sticking, unconformity of actions and routines, creativity reducing, and, in this connection, the efficiency of functioning in nonstandard business and everyday situations (Grigorenko, 2009; Kuznetsova, 2014).

The system of higher education is oriented to specialist training, an engineer including, through some certain competences. Living people will fulfill professional activity and solve life practical tasks, according to Shirinskaya (2014), but not robots possessing some specific functions – competences. Taking care of psychological well-being of student personality is of great importance at this stage. This finally leads to the possibility of well-being experience in profession (Tarasova, 2014; Fesenko, 2005).

Following Fesenko and Shevelenkova (2005), the concept of «psychological well-being» is first of all related to existential experience of person’s own life, has such a quality as integrity and is grounded on the integral estimate of personal existence.

The factors influencing student psychological well-being, including age crises, were studied by Grigorenko (2009).

At the stage of university adaptation, students’ psychological well-being depends on the level of personality psychological well-being. The higher the level of psychological well-being is, the faster and easier the adaptation of the first year university students is (Tarasova, 2014).

Students’ psychological well-being has an influence on the process of future professional competences forming. Shirinskaya (2014) marks out the structure of psychological well-being relating to the structure of Ryff.

Research Questions

At the first stage of research, the heterogeneousness of psychological well-being distribution among the students was studied. The groups with a high, average and low level of psychological well-being were formed. The structure of psychological well-being was compared with the following criteria: «Positive relation with others», «Autonomy», «Environment control», «Personal development», «Goals in life», «Self-acceptance»; according to the types and elements within the groups.

At the second stage of the research success and difficulty experience assessment as well as the problems in general and the actions connected with different spheres like «Play», «Work», «Learn», «Live», «Communicate», «Love» and «Make friends», were compared with. Success was examined. The analysis of the course of study, progress in studies, carrying out scientific work, taking part in extra-curricular activities, on-stage performance groups, going in for sports was performed.

At the third stage, life trueness experience was reviewed in the groups with various levels of psychological well-being. The mechanisms and correlations of all characteristics with life trueness were established. The model of psychological well-being for each group was made.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the research is to reveal the peculiarities and models of psychological well-being of the students of the technical university.

Research Methods

The research was carried out from 2015 to 2017, based on IRNITU. The sampling population is students of the Technical University numbering 570 people, among them there are 287 girls and 283 youths at the age from 17 to 21, trained at the technical specialties of a bachelor degree course of all years of study.

The investigation was conducted with the help of the following psychological methods: poll, questionnaire and psychodiagnostic techniques by Ryff (2018) «The scales of psychological well-being»; Sapogova and Dmitrieva (2012) «Life trueness», «Life difficulty»; Sapogova and Trukhacheva (2007) «Success determining». The mathematical treatment of research results was implemented with the help of computer programme of Statistica 13. The comparison of results of all psychodiagnostic techniques was fulfilled using a parametric test of - t- Student, the comparing of results obtained in the interview and the questionnaire by nonparametric Mann - Whitney U-test. Also r-Spearman rank correlation coefficient was used.

Survey is a controlled talk to get information about the personality and specify the data by psychodiagnostic techniques.

Questionnaire presupposes qualifying questions to get to know the information about the course of study, progress, carrying out scientific work, taking part in extra-curricular activities, on-stage performance groups, well-being level by the scale of Kovalyov (2014): well-being – absolute well-being, total well-being and weak (fragile), average well-being - strong, full and weak; and ill-being - little well-being, problems and full ill-being; 5 elements of well-being are health, love, relationships, work and money.

«The scales of psychological well-being» by К. Ryff gives us an opportunity to measure the structural characteristics of psychological well-being as follows: «Positive relation with others»; «Autonomy»; «Environment control»; «Personal development»; «Goals in life»; «Self-acceptanc e ».

The method of «Life trueness» by Sapogova and Dmitrieva (2012) allows one to evaluate the experience of trueness of being and life phenomena: «play», «work», «learn», «live», «communicate», «love», «make friends».

The method of «Life difficulty» by Sapogova and Dmitrieva (2012) is used for estimating difficulty experience and problems in general as well as the actions related to various spheres: «Play», «Work», «Learn», «Live», «Communicate», «Love» and «Make friends».

The method of «Success determining» by Sapogova and Trukhacheva (2007) permits to analyse some individual realization emotional experience, own life effectiveness.

Findings

The students of the Technical University have high values of spread and standard deviation of psychological well-being experience, this becomes the foundation of sorting out three groups of the following levels: high, average and low ones.

The considerable distinction of the students groups with a high level of psychological well-being (19% of all tested, 71 girls and 38 youths) is that they easily come into contacts, possess communicative skills; they are well wishing and have positive attitudes towards teachers, students of the same year and people in a broad manner. They are autonomous to take decisions and organize their lives. It is typical of them to control themselves and others. In this group, all students are active and leaders showing good and excellent progress, active stand in life. The personal development, even, if the respondents do not realize it as it is, becomes evident analyzing the autobiographies during the studying in the University. They can define the goals, achieve them overcoming difficulties, accepting themselves either successful or not. This group is made by the representatives of the second - 25%, third - 37% and forth - 38% years of study.

The peculiarities of these students consist in life trueness experience in all its manifestations as originality, sincerity, accuracy, satisfaction, authenticity and realization. For the better part (76%), it is peculiar to experience life hardness in such spheres like working, learning, loving. In addition, they get tired, have a lot of difficulties and problems, but they have a high opinion of achievements as a victory over them. For them it is important to think that success is the result of their realization. They understand that success is in their hands.

The studying of the typology of a high level of well-being did not reveal absolute students well-being. The representatives of this group of students are evenly divided into the types: «full» and «fragile» well-being. All of them study well and excellently.

The model of psychological well-being of the students with its «full» type has a balanced average degree of 5 elements of well-being: they have a job that is low-paid, but at this life stage it is regarded as a great piece of luck and the possibility to have own money. Good progress makes it possible to get a scholarship. There are relations and love or hope that there are such relationships in the future («love will come» or «the relations should be built, when a career is made»). All of them have friends and a wide range of communication. Only 12% of students of this group mark out health as an ill-being factor. They lead healthy life-style and go in for sports.

The model of psychological well-being of the students with its «fragile» type, typical for them, has an unbalanced degree of 5 elements of well-being: somebody has a job, but doesn’t have relations or love, or somebody has relations and love, but there are some money problems. Other students have health problems, but they have disease states «on foot», because they «do not have time to be ill».

The students having an average level of psychological well-being (54%, 162 girls and 149 youths) are represented by all years of study within their group they are more inhomogeneous. In the relations with others, 65% of them are positive, 29 % - neutral, 6 % - conflict. The autonomy is only typical of 24%, environment control – 36%, personal development– 57%. 39% can define goals in life, and 61% do not think about them. Self-acceptance occurs in 63%.

Life trueness experience is average. The analysis according to the scales of life trueness demonstrates average values of originality, accuracy, satisfaction, authenticity and realization of life. The evaluation of their success is average with understanding of the success type as «success and progress have importance to the extent that they are accepted by those around them», «success is game of chance», «successfulness is defined by resources of microsocial milieu». The respondents of this group have an average level of the appreciation degree of life difficulties experience according to the activity spheres like to work, learn, live, communicate, love, make friends.

The levels of average well-being are 63% of «strong» average performers. Indeed, these are less favourable students. They make progress in studies and take part in extra-curricular activities, but everything troubles them; that is why they are not always satisfied with what is going on. The second group has 37% «full» average performers», describing their well-being, they often say that «at least they are at the University, study, attend classes and seminars».

The model of psychological well-being of the students group with its average level is founded on the notion of managing everything, the elements of psychological well-being – health, relationships, love, work, studies, money do not have clearly marked limits; the notions are mixed or idealized. Among them 42% have good progress, 13% have failed tests or examinations and retaken them during their studies; 36% work, 78% have the lack of money; 52% have love relations and friendship with the opposite sex; 41% have fears about their health, half of them strengthen it.

The students showing a low level of psychological well-being are not pleased with themselves and their personality qualities; they do not have faith in themselves. They underestimate possibilities, negatively appreciate themselves and their lives, circumstances and are unable to change something in their lives. They do not have any feeling of environment control. This characterizes them as the people having a limited number of confident, close relationships, difficulty in manifesting warm-heartedness, commutability, unreadiness to make a compromise with others for maintaining relations. That is why, perhaps, they feel social isolation and frustration, the difficulty in everyday activity organizing, impossibility to control what is going on. The received data describe the respondents as being dependent. They cannot resist the social medium attempts to make them think and act in a particular way. The progress of such students is an average satisfactory mark. In the past, they had some academic failures. The result of «personality development» is very low in this group.

The research of life trueness experience, successfulness and the estimation of its difficulty with the students, having a low level of psychological well-being, showed a low level of originality. They think that they live the same life as the others and it is necessary to aspire to some social ideals. These students have ostentation in their behavior. They are not sure of specialty choice. They think that they have to find some other profession to help them realize themselves and provide with income. There is dissatisfaction in all aspects of their lives. Their attention concentrates either in the past (during the talk they say about their past success and achievements) or in the future (that they think to be more interesting, the authenticity and realization will take place in it).

These students evaluate success as a «game of chance»; the statement «a capable person is successful» is typical of them. Their life is full of problems. There is a special feature of problems experience in the students; estimates with a low level of psychological well-being. In the evaluation of activity spheres, there are 2 subgroups of imbalance. The first subgroup has high difficulty results in the sphere of work and studies and low ones in communication, love and friendship. These students can easily communicate and build relations, but studies or the search for a job, and the thoughts about work in general make them stressed at a psychological and physical level. They interpret well-being as a maximum possibility of easy work or studies in combination with their realization in communication and relations. For them to come to classes means to communicate to a far greater degree than to study. The second subgroup, on the contrary, spend fewer efforts to study and work and the communication, love and friendship are related to problems. The model of their inner well-being is connected with the opportunity to study and work without unnecessary communication and relations, being so much difficult for them.

In both subgroups, there is a low level of difficulty in the sphere of actions of «Play». It is possible that this skill is easier for them since their childhood. The difficulties in the sphere of actions of «Live» are referred to some problems in everyday solving, general perception of existence difficulty.

All students with a low level of well-being have the level of less prosperity. There are some objective problems dealt with studies, money, relationships, love and self-realisation.

Two levels, the lowest ones, are not presented; perhaps, young people of these levels do not enter the Universities.

Conclusion

The psychological well-being of the students of the Technical University is an important condition of life trueness experience. The students with a high and average level of psychological well-being consciously receive and integrate the obtained knowledge, skills, expertise and more efficiently achieve the professional competence, sensibly treat themselves, others and learning activity. They are active, overcome difficulties and become stronger, experiencing self-realisation; they are successful.

The students having a low level of psychological well-being are in need of attention, competent guidance of University teachers and psychological support.

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