A Research Synthesis of Well-being in Children and Adolescents in Singapore

Well-being is fundamental to human functioning and life more broadly. There is an increasing trend to examine well-being where researchers seek to define the domains and measurements of well-being in children and adolescents. In this chapter, we draw from the literature and propose an organizing framework that is made up of mental, subjective, psychological, economic, and physical well-being. We conduct a research synthesis on the completed projects (For scoping purposes, projects funded by two major Education Research bodies—the Educational Research Funding Program (ERFP) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) Academies Funds (MAF)—are reviewed) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, that are related to well-being. Findings from 31 included projects are synthesized and discussed within the current local learning contexts. Importantly, the included projects take on a holistic approach that attends to mental, subjective, psychological, economic, and physical well-being in children and adolescents which resonates with the science of learning and development approach. Rising above, we discuss how the emerging field of science of learning offers an avenue to intersect neuroscience and educational psychology to provide a fuller understanding of student wellness in the context of the Singapore education system.