Study-Related Experiences and Their Association with Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of empirical data on relationship of study-related learning experiences with students’ psychological well-being and academic success.The data were obtained using the original Activity-Related Experiences Assessment technique (AREA) and a number of additional measures.The results of four studies are presented.The first one was devoted to the psychometric validation of AREA questionnaire.The results confirmed the construct validity of the model of activity-related experiences.The second study compared experiences associated with different types of activities (study and leisure).Differences in the structure of correlations of experiences related to different activities confirmed that experiences are activity-related rather than personality-related.The third study presents data on the relationship of study-related experiences with personality traits and academic performance.Only the experience of pleasure revealed a significant association with academic performance.The purpose of the last study was identifying the structure and reliability of AREA on the combined sample by CFA using and checking the connection of study-related experiences with indicators of psychological well-being.Experiences of pleasure and meaning were closely related to each other and negatively related to the experience of void, while the experience of effort was hardly associated the other three scores.Experiences of pleasure and meaning reveal predictable direct (and the experience of void the reverse) association with indicators of well-being.