Effective Educational Practices and Students’ Well-being: The Mediating Role of Students’ Self-efficacy

Effective educational practices aim to promote students’ academic achievement; however, they also have an impact on students’ well-being which is a growing topic of interest in educational research. In a sample of 2242 students (5th to 10th grades) nested in 104 classrooms from Spanish schools, we have tested the mediating role of students’ self-efficacy on the relationship between effective educational practices and both students’ well-being and academic performance. Analyses were run at student and class levels, by performing a multilevel mediation structural equation model with cross-sectional data. Results supported a partial mediation model at the individual level, in which effective educational practices had a direct and indirect effect on students’ well-being, and indirect effect on academic performance in math and language through self-efficacy. At the group level, results support a full mediation model of the effect of effective educational practices in class well-being and in class math performance (but not in language), mediated by the group mean of self-efficacy. These findings suggest the importance of educational practices in increasing self-efficacy beliefs on their students, as a source to increase students’ well-being and academic performance.