Enhancing the well-being of primary and post-primary students is one of the
priorities of the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland. Whilst
interventions are being implemented across the board, little is known about the
current levels of adolescents’ well-being. Drawing from research on positive
education, in the current study well-being was assessed amongst 2822
adolescents, aged 12–19 in Ireland, using the PERMA profiler [Butler, J., and
M. L. Kern. (2016). “The PERMA-Profiler: A Brief Multidimensional Measure
of Flourishing.” International Journal of Wellbeing 6 (3): 1–48. doi:10.5502/ijw.
v6i3.526] and “VIA-Youth Survey” [VIA Character (2014). http://www.
viacharacter.org/www/Research-Old2/Psychometric-Data-VIA-Youth-Survey].
Mann–Whitney U-test and multiple regression analyses were conducted in the
examination of age and sex differences in students’ well-being scores, and the
prediction of the contribution of character-strength-development to well-being.
The results showed that students’ well-being decreased steadily from the first
year, through to the middle and senior years of post-primary school.
Furthermore, in comparison to males, females reported lower levels of wellbeing across the board, and higher levels of negative emotions and loneliness.
Finally, the underuse of character strengths predicted lower levels of well-being
in Irish schools. Implications for practice include the importance of customising
well-being programmes across different schools and age groups, as well as the
potential for the incorporation of psychological tests to evaluate the effectiveness
of such interventions