How do physical activity and social media use predict the study wellbeing profile of comprehensive school students?

Five distinct study wellbeing profiles were identified among Finnish comprehensive school students.

• Profiles were identified using latent profile analysis among primary school students (n=345, age 11) and lower secondary school students (n=447, age 14).
• Three profiles showed a negative association between engagement and burnout: engaged, burned-out, and average.
• Two bivariate profiles were identified: exhausted-inadequacy and cynical.
• The profiles varied in their combination of study engagement and burnout dimensions.

Students in the engaged profile showed significantly higher physical activity than those in the average profile, while other profiles showed broadly similar levels of physical activity.

• Students generally reported engaging in physical activity for at least one hour on most days.
• The engaged profile had significantly higher physical activity compared to the average profile.
• The remaining profiles (burned-out, exhausted-inadequacy, and cynical) showed broadly similar levels of physical activity to one another.
• Physical activity differences across profiles were less pronounced than differences in social media use.

Clear differences in social media use emerged across study wellbeing profiles, with the burned-out profile reporting the highest use and the engaged profile the lowest.

• Students in the burned-out profile reported the highest social media use of all five profiles.
• Students in the engaged profile reported the lowest social media use.
• The other profiles (average, exhausted-inadequacy, and cynical) fell in between these two extremes.
• Social media use showed clearer differentiation across profiles than physical activity did.

Primary school students were more likely to belong to beneficial study wellbeing profiles compared to lower secondary school students.

• Primary school students (age 11, n=345) were more often represented in positive wellbeing profiles.
• Lower secondary school students (age 14, n=447) were less likely to be in beneficial profiles.
• This indicates a developmental or school-level transition effect on study wellbeing.

Gender differences were observed in profile membership, with girls more often represented in the exhausted-inadequacy and burned-out profiles and boys overrepresented in the cynical profile.

• Girls were more frequently found in the exhausted-inadequacy and burned-out profiles.
• Boys were overrepresented in the cynical profile.
• These gender differences suggest distinct patterns of study wellbeing challenges for boys versus girls.

Class-level clustering indicated that study wellbeing profiles were not evenly distributed across classes, suggesting contextual factors influence students' study wellbeing.

• Latent profile analysis revealed class-level clustering of study wellbeing profiles.
• The uneven distribution of profiles across classes indicates that classroom or school context plays a role in shaping student wellbeing.
• This finding highlights the importance of contextual factors beyond individual-level predictors.