Examining the predictor effect of 8th grade students' school life quality levels on the student's subjective well-being

The research aimed at two main objectives. First is to examine the school life quality and subjective well-being levels of 8th-grade students in terms of gender, absenteeism, perceived academic success, perceived parental attitudes, attending school courses and the type of courses in which they participated. The other one is to investigate the relationship between life quality of 8th-grade students and students' subjective well-being, and how the sub-dimensions of school life quality predict the subjective well-being. In the research, relational and survey model was used. The sample group covers 6 randomly selected schools among 15 secondary schools in Darıca district of Kocaeli in the 2018-2019 academic year. It consists of a total of 587 students, including 268 girls and 319 boys, who are in the 8th grade of the schools. School Quality of Life Scale (Sarı, 2012), Student Subjective Well-being Scale (Renshaw and Arslan, 2016) and Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher were used as data collection tools. When analyzing the data; for personal and demographic variables; differentiation status of scores obtained from subjective well-being by gender and school quality of life scales were examined by using t-test for independent samples; and the change in the scores obtained from subjective well-being and school life quality scale according to absenteeism and perceived parental attitudes were examined by Kruskal Wallis H-Test which is a nonparametric technique. In order to observe the change in subjective well-being and school quality of life according to students' perception of success and attending a course and the type of course they attended, and for independent samples, one-way ANOVA test; to examine the relationship between school life quality and subjective well-being, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient technique; and the predictor status of sub-dimensions of school life quality on subjective well-being, the multiple regression analysis were used and examined. As a result of the study, among the personal and demographic variables; no significant difference was observed on school quality of life according to gender but observed a low significant difference on subjective well-being. When we examined the absenteeism durations, school life quality and subjective well-being levels of the students who have absenteeism duration between 0-5 days were found to be higher. According to the perceived success of the students, it was found that the students who perceived themselves as successful had higher levels of school life quality and subjective well-being. And among the parental attitudes such as inconsistent, careless, democratic, repressive and protective attitudes, it was found that the school life quality and subjective well-being levels of the students who experienced the democratic attitude have higher scores than the other groups. It was found that the quality of life and subjective well-being of the students who took part in the after-school academic courses were higher than those who did not take part in the courses. And between perceived school life quality and subjective well-being of students, a medium-level positive relationship revealed. Moreover, it was concluded that the school quality of life of the students significantly predicts the subjective well-being in terms of teachers, emotions for school, school management and status dimensions. The findings of the study were discussed with the information in the body of literature and finally, suggestions were given to the researchers and practitioners. Keywords: Quality of Life, Subjective Well-being, School Quality of Life, Student Subjective Well-being