Mental health and academic resilience: A tale of two eras from PISA 2018 and PISA 2022

• In Event: Poster Group 2
  In Poster Session: Mental health and academic resilience: A tale of two eras from PISA 2018 and PISA 2022

Proposal

According to the OECD (2021a), the COVID-19 pandemic is having a far-reaching impact on various aspects of people’s well-being, which varies depending on factors such as age and race/ethnicity. Compared to adults, young people across countries have reported higher levels of anxiety and depression since the pandemic began (OECD, 2021b).

Anxiety and depression were already significant problems among teens before the pandemic (e.g., Pew Research Center, 2019). While about one in six children in the U.S. experienced a mental health disorder annually, up to 60% did not receive the treatment they needed (ECS, 2021). Given these pre-pandemic statistics, it is concerning to see a further decline in young people’s mental health since the pandemic’s onset across countries (OECD, 2021c). Positive mental health is generally associated with better task performance (OECD, 2018). Various pandemic-related disruptions might have negative associations with young people’s mental health and academic performance, and these impacts might be most visible for disadvantaged groups (OECD, 2021c).

This study examines three groups of student questionnaire measures from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. Measures include: 1) How often do you feel happy/joyful/cheerful? 2) My life has clear meaning or purpose, and 3) My school is a place where I feel I belong. The study focuses particularly on academically resilient students who are in the bottom quarter of the PISA index of economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS) in their own country but are scoring in the top quarter of reading in that country (OECD, 2020).

Using data from PISA 2018 and PISA 2022 (to be released in December 2023), this study aims to address the following questions:
• How does the mental health status of 15-year-olds during the pre-pandemic era (2018) compare to their counterparts’ mental health status after going through the pandemic for an extended period (2022)?
• How is mental health related to the mathematics, science, and reading achievement among academically resilient students and among their peers who are in the bottom quarter of the PISA ESCS index and score in the bottom quarter of reading? Does the association between mental health and academic achievement change for either group between 2018 and 2022?

Preliminary results using PISA 2018 suggest that most students across participating education systems reported that they “sometimes” or “always” feel happy (91%), joyful (89%), or cheerful (88%). Similarly, many students reported they “agree” or “strongly agree” that their life has clear meaning/purpose (74%) and that they have a clear sense of what gives meaning to their life (72%). Additionally, most students reported that they “strongly disagree” or “disagree” that they feel like an outsider at school (78%) and that they feel lonely at school (82%). Upon release of PISA 2022, we will compare findings from PISA 2018 and 2022, focusing on academically resilient students.

Findings from this study will help provide important evidence on academic resiliency and mental health aspects before and after the pandemic. Results can help identify student subgroups who may benefit from mental health support systems.

Authors

• Jason Solinsky, American Institutes for Research

• Marissa Hall, American Institutes for Research

• Yuan Zhang

• Sakiko Ikoma, American Institutes for Research