HEALTH EDUCATION RESEARCH
5 2006
Theory & Practice
School well-being in Grades 4–12
Anne I. Konu1* and T. P. Lintonen1,2
Abstract
The World Health Organization has encour-
aged a whole-school approach when trying to
promote mental health and well-being in
schools. The Internet-based School Well-being
Profile aims to be a holistic well-being evalua-
tion tool for schools. Well-being is divided into
four categories: ‘school conditions’, ‘social
relationships’, ‘means for self-fulfillment’ and
‘health status’. The questionnaires for the
School Well-being Profile were developed for
school personnel and for pupils at three levels:
primary, lower secondary and upper secondary
schools. The present data consisted of the
responses from 8285 participants from pri-
mary, lower and upper secondary school pupils
in the school year 2004–05 in Finland. School
well-being was compared between gender,
school levels and grades. Pupils in primary
school experienced school conditions, social
relationships and means for self-fulfillment to
be better than pupils in secondary schools.
When comparing gender and grades, the main
finding was that girls and younger students
within each school level rated school well-being
more positively, except the fact that boys had
fewer symptoms than girls did. The aim of the
School Well-being Profile is to provide a well-
1
Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere,
FIN-33014, Finland and 2University of Tampere Centre for
Advanced Study, FIN-33014, Finland
*Correspondence to: A. I. Konu.
E-mail: anne.konu@uta.fi
Ó The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Vol.21 no.
Pages 633–642
Advance Access publication 1 June 2006
being evaluation tool for schools to use. The
idea is that schools evaluate their well-being,
make positive changes and perform the evalua-
tion again to see if progress has been made.
Introduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) has en-
couraged a whole-school approach when trying to
promote mental health and well-being in schools. In
WHO, they use the concept of creating an environ-
ment for emotional and social well-being [1]. The
two already well-known holistic approaches to
school health promotion are the Health Promoting
School [2] and the Comprehensive School Health
Program [3, 4]. The settings approach—the shift
from monocausal risk factor interventions to focus
on the whole-school change—has many advocates
[5–7]. Lister-Sharp et al. [8] have also called for
a theoretical basis or explicated assumptions un-
derpinning the health promotion interventions in
schools. Recently, Deschesnes et al. [9] noted that
despite the tremendous potential of these two
comprehensive approaches to school health pro-
motion mentioned above, only rarely are they put
into practice. However, Mũkoma and Flisher [10]
showed that it is possible to integrate health
promotion into the school curriculum and policies
successfully.
Health promotion interventions could also ben-
efit from the action research practice of feeding
back the data to schools [11]. Furthermore, the
school organization needs to be motivated to get the
most out of health promotion interventions [12]. A
good example of feeding back the data to schools
doi:10.1093/her/cyl032
A. I. Konu and T. P. Lintonen
is the School Health Index (SHI) (http://apps.nccd.
cdc.gov/shi), which is a theory-based (the Coordi-
nated School Health Program [3, 4]) and holistic
school health evaluation tool. In SHI, schools can
fill in the questionnaires either on the Internet or in
paper format.
Lister-Sharp et al. [8] recommended new out-
come measures for school health promotion inter-
ventions in their systematic review of school health
promotion. Deschesnes et al. [9] state that the
fundamental goal is to evaluate the effectiveness
of holistic school health promotion programs; that
is, their ability to produce the desired effects on
health, well-being or academic achievements. Ac-
cording to St Leger [13], the evaluation of school
health programs should include cognitive and social
outcomes and comprehensive and holistic pro-
grams. The evaluation of health promotion inter-
ventions reveals many difficulties; for example,
how to evaluate different types of schools in
different areas with different health promotion
foci [10]. In both planning and evaluating health
promotion interventions, cooperation between
health and education sectors is essential [14].
Well-being in the school context has been
studied by Knuver and Brandsma [15], Samdal
[16] and Opdenakker and Van Damme [17].
Knuver and Brandsma [15] studied both cognitive
and affective outcomes in school. Affective out-
comes referred to attitudes the student had towards
school and learning. They measured school well-
being by Stoel’s [18] questionnaire about the
pupils’ experience (positive or negative) of their
school and its organization, their teachers and their
classmates. The schools’ cognitive and affective
outcomes were relatively independent [15].
Samdal [16] measured pupils’ subjective well-
being with one single item: ‘In general, how do you
feel about your life at present?’ Student support,
adequate expectations and teacher support were the
most important predictors of subjective well-being.
Opdenakker and Van Damme [17] used a well-
being questionnaire consisting of eight indicators:
well-being at school, social integration in the class,
relationships with teachers, interest in learning
tasks, motivation towards learning tasks, attitude
634
to homework, attentiveness in the classroom and
academic self-concept. The results showed that the
relative influence of classes and schools on a pupil’s
achievement was higher than the influence on his
or her well-being.
The present indicator, the well-being profile,
aims to be a holistic well-being evaluation tool for
schools. It is based on theoretical work on school
well-being, which produced a well-being model for
schools [19–22]. In the model, well-being is di-
vided into four categories: ‘school conditions’,
‘social relationships in school’, ‘means for self-
fulfillment in school’ and ‘health status’. The well-
being theory and model are discussed more deeply
in separate articles mentioned above, especially in
the article of Konu and Rimpelä [19].
Health promotion evaluation should help the
schools to develop their current practices and give
them relevant information to make plans for the
future. Evaluation research should bring informa-
tion to a broader audience: what kind of interven-
tions and practices were successful in improving
health and well-being in schools. The aim of the
present paper is to present a holistic, Internet-based
evaluation method of school well-being and to
compare the well-being in different grades in
primary, lower secondary and upper secondary
schools in Finland. The School Well-being Profile’s
main purpose is to aid an individual school in its
development process in an easy and effective way.
Methods
Development of the well-being evaluation
tool
For the School Well-being Profile, new question-
naires were developed on the basis of the Well-being
Model and the empirical findings of the School
Health Promotion Survey in Finland [19–22] and two
international school surveys conducted in Finland:
Health Behaviour in School-aged Children [23] and
School Environment 2000 Questionnaire [24]. The
well-being profile questionnaires were tested during
the years 2002–04 in the Koulumiete Project [25],
which was a part of the Pirkanmaa Mental Health

project (www.pmh.info). The region of Pirkanmaa,
which has a city of about 200 000 inhabitants as well
as other smaller towns, is situated in southern
Finland. The Koulumiete Project’s main aims were
to support pupils’ mental health, prevent marginali-
zation and support the whole school so that it could
promote positive development. The Koulumiete
Project worked with seven schools (two primary
and five lower secondary schools) in the region. One
school was in an urban area, and others were in
smaller towns. There were two main strategies for
achieving the project’s aims, which were to produce
a well-being profile for each school and thus to find
out the most important development areas from the
well-being and mental health viewpoints and to pay
special attention to school absenteeism and develop
a model for early recognition and prompt help for
pupils with high absence rates.
The questionnaires for the School Well-being
Profile were developed for school personnel and for
pupils at three levels: primary (Grades 4–6, aged
10–12 years), lower secondary (Grades 7–9, aged
13–15 years) and upper secondary (Grades 10–12,
aged 16–18 years). The topics of the questions were
the same at each level, only wording was suited for
each grade and for personnel. In the questionnaires
for primary schools, the answering options were
decreased to three (agree, neither agree nor dis-
agree, disagree) instead of the five in others
(completely agree, agree, neither agree nor dis-
agree, disagree, completely disagree). There were
also fewer questions in each well-being category for
primary schools to make it more suitable for pupils
aged 10–13 years.
The school conditions category included questions
on physical conditions like ventilation, desks, class-
rooms, safety; organizational conditions like sched-
ules, working in peace, rules and regulations, haste,
lunch break and services like lunches, access to a
school nurse and counselor. The number of questions
was 15 in primary, and 26 in lower and upper
secondary schools. The social relationships category
had questions on relationships between personnel
and pupils, among pupils themselves and cooperation
between homes and school. The number of questions
was 15 in primary, 19 in lower secondary and 17 in
School well-being
upper secondary schools. The means for self-fulfill-
ment category included questions on work appreci-
ation, attitudes towards studies, getting help in
studying, participation, spurring on and commend-
ing. The number of questions was 17 in primary
schools, and 24 in lower and upper secondary
schools. The health status category had questions
mostly on symptoms: neck and shoulder pains, lower
back pains, stomach aches, tension or nervousness,
irritability and temper tantrums, difficulties falling
asleep or awakenings during night, headache, feeling
tired or weak, feeling downhearted, feeling fear,
common cold, flu and cough. The number of
questions was nine in primary schools, and 11 in
lower and upper secondary schools [25].
Data and analysis
The well-being profile has not yet been publicly
advertised. Schools which have heard about it in
seminars or by word of mouth or found it them-
selves on the Internet have used it. It is located in
the Finnish National Board of Education Web
pages (www2.edu.fi/hyvinvointiprofiili). Some ac-
tive schools have found the profile by searching for
something new in those Web pages. The present
data consisted of participants from active and
voluntary schools. This is likely to cause some
bias when using it for research purposes. However,
the selection process was the same in each school
level, and the comparison was made between
school levels and within school grades. In Finland,
every school has access to the Internet (M. Suvanen,
personal communication), over 80% through
a high-speed connection. However, there may be
differences between schools on how this technol-
ogy is used and managed. This may affect which
schools use this kind of an evaluation tool. This has
also been a technical test period for the tool itself
and it has worked well.
After the schools asked for and received their
username and password, the primary user, usually
a teacher, in each school instructed the pupils and
personnel on how to complete the questionnaires
on the Internet. The schools were advised to fill
in the questionnaires during school hours under
a teacher’s supervision. The researchers were not
635
A. I. Konu and T. P. Lintonen
present. The administration of the instrument may
have varied between schools, which may have
affected the results. To ensure confidentiality,
each pupil and a member of personnel got a ran-
domly assigned password for the questionnaire.
These passwords were not saved in the database.
Seventy schools completed the well-being profile
(33 primary schools, 28 lower secondary schools, 9
upper secondary schools and personnel from 46
schools) from a total of around 4000 primary and
secondary schools in Finland. The total number of
9169 questionnaires was completed during October
2004–May 2005 (2381 pupils from primary, 5280
from lower secondary, 624 from upper secondary
schools and 884 people from school personnel).
The present data consisted of pupils from all
participating schools from three levels: primary
school (Grades 4–6), lower secondary school
(Grades 7–9) and upper secondary school (Grades
10–12). The results from personnel data will be
discussed in a separate article. In all, 49.3% of
participating pupils was male, 10.4% 4th, 6.7% 5th,
11.6% 6th, 27.7% 7th, 18.8% 8th, 17.3% 9th, 4.5%
10th, 1.8% (151 students) 11th and 1.1% (93
students) 12th Graders. Six students studied fourth
year in upper secondary school and were not
included in comparing the grade data.
In the School Well-being Profile, means for each
well-being category (school conditions, social re-
lationship, means for self-fulfillment and health
status) were calculated. The proportion of missing
responses within variables varied between 0 and
4%. Most missing responses concerned questions
on counselors—not all schools had them. The
percentage of agreement (completely agree or
agree) was calculated for each variable. Bullying
was indicated by the percentage of those being
bullied/bullied others at least once a week during
the school term (percentage of those being bullied
many times during this school term among primary
school pupils). In the health status category, the
indicators present the percentage never experienc-
ing these symptoms.
One-way analysis of variance with Bonferroni post
hoc test in the cases of more than two explanatory
variable categories was used for analyzing the
636
statistical significances of differences between the
mean values of the four well-being categories by
explanatory variables. The internal consistency of
each well-being category was calculated using Cron-
bach’s alpha. The correlations between categories
were analyzed using Pearson correlation. SPSS 11.0
for Windows was used for the analysis.
Results
The internal consistencies of the four well-being
categories were very good at each school level: in
the school conditions category, Cronbach’s alpha
was 0.84 in primary school (0.92 in lower second-
ary and 0.89 in upper secondary), in the social
relationships category, it was 0.78 in primary
school (0.89 and 0.89, respectively), in the means
for self-fulfillment category, 0.87 in primary school
(0.94 and 0.92, respectively) and in the health status
category, it was 0.79 in primary school (0.90 and
0.89, respectively). As expected, the correlations
between well-being categories were moderate [22]
at each school level. The highest correlation was
found between the means for self-fulfillment and
social relationships categories (0.74 primary, 0.74
lower secondary, 0.71 upper secondary), means for
self-fulfillment correlated also with the school
conditions category (0.71, 0.69, 0.64, respectively).
The lowest correlation was found between the
school conditions and health status categories
(0.32, 0.31, 0.31, respectively).
The differences in school well-being between
school levels are presented in Fig. 1. Pupils in
primary school experienced school conditions and
means for self-fulfillment to be better than pupils in
lower and upper secondary schools, but there was
no difference between lower and upper secondary
school pupils. There was a significant difference
between each school level on social relationships
category; lower secondary school pupils rated their
social relationships the lowest. Pupils in upper
secondary schools had more symptoms than pupils
in lower secondary and pupils in primary schools;
there was no significant difference between lower
secondary and primary school pupils.
 School well-being

The differences in school well-being between
gender and between grades (Grades 4–6 in primary
school, Grades 7–9 in lower secondary school and
Grades 10–12 in upper secondary school) within
each school level are presented in Tables I and II.
The main finding was that girls and younger
students within each school level rated school
well-being more positively, except the fact that
boys had fewer symptoms than girls did.
Selected single questions from each well-being
category are presented in Fig. 2. School was rated
quite safe. Almost 65% from lower and upper
secondary school pupils thought that there was too
much time pressure in school. Over 90% of pupils

social relationships
a,b,c

means for self-fulfillment

a,c

school conditions
a,c

primary
health status
lower sec.
b,c
upper sec.

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Note: Statistically significant differences (p < .05): a primary to lower secondary, b lower secondary to upper secondary,
c primary to upper secondary school levels

Fig. 1. The differences in school well-being between school levels. (0 = completely disagree, 4 = completely agree, except in the health
status category: 0 = symptoms almost every day and 4 = never experiencing these symptoms.)

Table I. Differences in school well-being between the genders within each school level

Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary

Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys

Mean SD Mean SD Significance Mean SD Mean SD Significance Mean SD Mean SD Significance

School 3.07 0.64 2.92 0.78 ** 2.40 0.56 2.33 0.64 ** 2.32 0.46 2.36 0.58 NS
conditions
Social 3.39 0.47 3.23 0.60 ** 2.93 0.50 2.83 0.56 ** 3.02 0.47 2.93 0.62 NS
relationships
Means for 3.22 0.58 3.04 0.70 ** 2.63 0.54 2.60 0.61 NS 2.62 0.49 2.59 0.58 NS
self-fulfillment
Health 2.61 0.78 2.77 0.82 ** 2.52 0.80 2.91 0.76 ** 2.33 0.75 2.78 0.88 **
status

**P < 0.001.

637
A. I. Konu and T. P. Lintonen

Table II. Differences in school well-being between grades within each school level

Mean SD Significance Mean SD Significance Mean SD Significance

Primary school Fourth (4–5) Fifth (5–6) Sixth (4–6)

School conditions 3.21 0.61 ** 2.99 0.71 ** 2.80 0.76 **
Social relationships 3.39 0.49 NS 3.33 0.54 ** 3.22 0.57 **
Means for self-fulfillment 3.29 0.56 * 3.16 0.64 ** 2.97 0.70 **
Health status 2.78 0.81 * 2.63 0.81 NS 2.65 0.79 *
Lower secondary school Seventh (7–8) Eighth (8–9) Ninth (7–9)
School conditions 2.46 0.61 ** 2.34 0.57 ** 2.24 0.60 **
Social relationships 2.96 0.53 ** 2.85 0.50 * 2.79 0.56 **
Means for self-fulfillment 2.72 0.56 ** 2.57 0.54 * 2.50 0.60 **
Health status 2.79 0.78 NS 2.73 0.80 ** 2.60 0.83 **
Upper secondary school Tenth (10–11) Eleventh (11–12) Twelfth (10–12)
School conditions 2.40 0.44 NS 2.28 0.51 NS 2.25 0.59 NS
Social relationships 3.06 0.41 NS 2.97 0.61 NS 2.80 0.62 **
Means for self-fulfillment 2.67 0.45 NS 2.56 0.54 NS 2.50 0.61 *
Health status 2.54 0.79 NS 2.37 0.86 NS 2.54 0.91 NS

*P < 0.05, **P < 0.001.

School conditions Social relationships

rules and regulations na. I have friends in school
are sensible c
b
na.
punisments are fair easy to get along with
b teachers
a, b
not too much time na. teachers treat pupils
pressure fairly
a, b, c
na. most tearchers are
ventilation is good
friendly
a, b, c
school is safe pupils in class get along
a, b, c well a, c
primary primary
there is a good chance lower sec. classmates intervene in lower sec.
to work in peace upper sec. bullying upper sec.
a, b, c a, b, c
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
% agree or fully agree % agree or fully agree

Means for self-fulfillment Health status

irritability or temper tantrums na.
I get help from teachers b
a, c neck or shoulder pains na.
b
I am able to follow feeling fear
teaching a, b, c
feeling downhearted
teachers commend work a, b, c
lower back pains
well done a, b, c
a stomach aches
pupils' views are taken a, c
being tense and nervous
into account a, b, c
a, c
feeling tired or weak
my work is appreciated in a, b, c
school flu, common cold etc.
a, c primary a, c primary
pupils take part in lower sec. trouble with sleep lower sec.
a, b, c
making rules upper sec. headache upper sec.
a, b, c a, c
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
% agree of fully agree % rarely or never

Note: Statistically significant differences (p < .05): a primary to lower secondary, b lower secondary to upper secondary, c primary to upper secondary school levels

Fig. 2. Selected single questions from each well-being category at primary, lower and upper secondary schools.

had friends in school, but only a third reported that ary and 72% in primary school) thought that
classmates intervened in bullying. In all, 53% of teachers treated pupils fairly. Around 80% of pupils
lower secondary school pupils (60% upper second- thought that they could follow teaching and got

638

help from teachers, but only a quarter of pupils (a
third in primary school) took part in making rules in
school and 45–56% of pupils felt that their views
were taken into account in school development.
Around two-thirds of pupils never felt fear in
school. In primary schools, fewer pupils had any
symptoms. Headache, stomach ache and common
cold were the most commonly reported symptoms
at all school levels. In secondary schools, feeling
tired or weak and being tense and nervous were also
common symptoms.
In all, 5.3% of pupils were bullied once a week or
more often in lower secondary and 2.4% in upper
secondary school. In all, 3.9% bullied others once
a week or more often in lower secondary and 2.7%
in upper secondary school. In primary school, the
response options for this question were ‘never’,
‘rarely’ and ‘many times’ during this school term.
In all, 6.9% of pupils were bullied many times and
3.2% bullied others many times.
Discussion
Health promotion interventions should feed back
data to schools [11]. This was the main aim of the
development of the Internet-based well-being eval-
uation system for schools (the School Well-being
Profile; www2.edu.fi/hyvinvointiprofiili). Most
probably, the schools that utilize the system are
motivated for development, because they have
actively chosen to use it. Those schools may also
be the most motivated and get the most out of
a health promotion intervention, as Reynolds and
Teddie [12] called for. The School Well-being
Profile acts as a health promotion intervention by
a careful, theory-based planning of the question-
naire giving instant feedback. Answering the ques-
tionnaire (open questions included) gives the pupils
a possibility to get their voice heard.
The data analyzed in this paper were gathered
from pupils who answered the well-being profile
questionnaire during the school year 2004–05.
Some questions on the qualities of the research
data should be noted. It consisted of different
numbers of pupils from each school level (primary,
School well-being
lower secondary and upper secondary) and grade
(from 4 to 12). However, even the grade with the
least participants had 93 respondents. In most
schools, all their pupils used the system; in some
schools, only a certain grade completed it. Even
pupils absent during the survey could easily
complete the questionnaire when they returned to
school. We do not know how many pupils in each
school did not answer the questionnaire. However,
we do know that the schools were motivated and
wanted their pupils to complete the questionnaire.
In addition, the fact that the most active schools
participated in the system may introduce some bias
in the results. To the above-mentioned limitations
had to be added the fact that not every school could
participate in the system, because it is in the
Internet. Although every school has had access to
the Internet since the year 2000 (M. Suvanen,
personal communication), in practice, the use of
the Internet varies considerably among schools.
Despite these limitations, the School Well-being
Profile provided a decent data set for studying well-
being in schools.
The wording of the questionnaires had minor
variations according to school level. The primary
school questionnaire differed the most from the
others. Some questions were removed to make it
shorter and more easily understandable for children
aged 10–13 years. The theoretical basis of school
well-being [19] was the same in each questionnaire
and the topics of the questions were the same. The
internal consistencies of the school conditions,
social relationships, means for self-fulfillment and
health status categories were very good in lower
and upper secondary schools and good in primary
school.
The data were gathered entirely via Internet. The
feedback concerning the answering mode has been
very positive. An open question on the ease of use
was included at the end of the questionnaires. Over
90% of the answers were like the following: very
easy, easy, easily, easy of course, much easier than
in paper format, piece of cake, etc. McCabe et al.
[26] have found that among young children, there
were minimal differences between survey modes
(Web form versus paper form) in data quality.
639
A. I. Konu and T. P. Lintonen
Pupils in primary school experienced school
conditions, social relationships and means for
self-fulfillment to be better than pupils in lower
and upper secondary schools. Pupils in secondary
school are going through their period of puberty,
during which they construct their identity and self-
image. Their opinions towards adults at home and
school vary. In adolescence, pupils’ cogitation
gradually approaches the level of abstraction and
logic, which is typical of adults [27]. These changes
may affect the way they assess the settings they
study in. Whatever the reason, pupils’ assessments
of school at each level should be noted. This could
also be a sign of pupils’ views being ignored in
school. Less than half of the pupils thought that
their views were taken into account and only a third
reported that pupils could take part in making rules.
Primary school pupils ranked these questions
higher than others. This is surprising; it would
seem natural that older pupils had more say in
school. That might increase their responsibility as
students, too. School well-being could also be
improved by appreciating each member’s work
in school more. The appreciation is seen also in
offering possibilities for pupils’ participation. The
school environment has a major impact on behavior
and emotional well-being, so we should ensure that
young people feel valued at school by providing
them with opportunities for positive participation
[28]. Simovska [29] calls for schools to provide
space for the voices and choices of young people.
In the lower secondary schools, pupils experi-
enced social relationships to be worse than pupils
in primary and upper secondary schools. The period
between Grades 7 and 9 (from 13- to 15-year old
pupils) is very challenging. During puberty, school
motivation may diminish, difficulties in concentrat-
ing may affect studying and pupils need continuing
feedback about themselves [30]. This calls for
special efforts to enhance social relationships be-
tween pupils and personnel, and among pupils
themselves. The transition from primary to second-
ary school (between Grades 6 and 7) is quite a big
change for pupils in Finland. Many children, of
course, manage the transition well, but it may be
a stressful situation when they are undergoing the
640
changes experienced during puberty [31]. In pri-
mary schools, we usually have one teacher per
class, whereas in secondary schools there is a dif-
ferent teacher in every school subject. Recently,
schools with Grades 1–9 have been introduced
to reduce the gap between Grades 6 and 7.
Bullying was not very common in participating
schools compared with the School Health Pro-
motion Survey in Finland, where 8% of 8th and 9th
Graders were bullied and 6% bullied others once
a week or more often [32]. Still, the finding that
classmates do not intervene when others are being
bullied is alarming. Salmivalli et al. [33] see
bullying as a group phenomenon, where there are
more players involved than only the one who
bullies others and the one being bullied. School
personnel should take action to educate pupils to
intervene when their classmates are being bullied.
Promising results have been seen when the whole-
school policy approach [34] and participant role
approach in school classes [35] have been used.
Comparing gender and grades, the main finding
was that girls and younger students within each
school level rated school well-being more posi-
tively. However, girls had more symptoms than
boys at every school level, even in primary school.
This result is in line with other studies [20, 36].
The differences between gender and grade tend
to diminish in upper secondary school.
Primary school pupils’ responses concerning
single questions on school well-being were gener-
ally more positive than corresponding responses
in secondary schools. Interesting exceptions were
noted. Only one-third of primary school pupils
thought that there was a good chance to work in
peace, whereas many more secondary school pupils
thought so. Less than half of primary school pupils
thought that their work was appreciated in school,
whereas this percentage was ;60 among secondary
school pupils. Work appreciation would be an
interesting topic for further research at all school
levels.
Early prevention programs for younger children
are more effective as well as programs which
develop protective factors compared with those
which try to reduce existing negative behavior [37].

The current intervention tried to influence schools
as a whole—starting from primary school. Its basis
was positive development—well-being in school.
Schools get both pupils’ and personnel’s results, so
they are able to see a holistic picture of well-being
in their own school. They can see the ratings of the
four well-being categories as well as single ques-
tions. They can also compare their own school’s
results with the results of all answers from the same
school level. The feedback data were available
directly on the Internet. In the Koulumiete Project,
the results were discussed among the school
personnel, and the teachers presented and discussed
each class’s results with the pupils. After these
discussions, the schools started to work on chosen
development areas [25]. During the present study,
the administrator was available for advice when
needed. Lectures have also been given in different
seminars in Finland. Several intervention projects
utilizing the system have been started; these include
more intensive participation in the school develop-
ment process.
The SHI (http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/shi) has
mainly the same purposes as our tool. It is a
theory-based and holistic school health evaluation
tool and its main purpose is to feed back data to
schools. Both can be used either on the Internet or
in paper format. The theory behind them is different
as is the role of the evaluation tool provider. A
detailed comparison of these two tools is out of
limits of this present paper, but would be an
interesting task for the future.
The main features of the School Well-being
Profile are that it is theory-based [19] and that it
uses new technology offering instant feedback. The
profile is available on the Internet for schools to use
free of charge. The idea is that schools evaluate
their well-being, make positive changes and per-
form the evaluation again to see whether the
development has been in the right direction. In the
future, it would be important to investigate how
schools really use their feedback data; do they make
improvements based on the results? According to
the feedback on the system, the results have started
discussions in schools and that is, in itself, a way
forward.
School well-being
Acknowledgement
This study was financially supported by the Foun-
dation of Juho Vainio in Finland.
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Received on June 29, 2005; accepted on March 1, 2006