Student well-being in higher education: Scale development and validation with implications for management education

Student well-being (SWB) encompasses the physical, psychological, and social wellness of students, aspects increasingly at risk in the high-pressure environment of higher education. Marked by intense workloads, unmet expectations, and uncertainties around degree completion and employment, the higher education sector faces a growing challenge in maintaining and enhancing SWB. Current instruments for assessing SWB are limited in scope, failing to capture its multifaceted nature comprehensively. Addressing this gap, our research adopts a rigorous multi-study, multi-method, and multi-sample approach to develop and validate a multi-dimensional scale that effectively captures the nuances of SWB. This process encompassed five methodical stages: scale generation, scale purification, scale refinement, scale validation, and scale generalizability. The resulting SWB scale, encompassing five key dimensions—academic well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being, psychological resilience well-being, and relational well-being—provides a sophisticated tool for measuring and improving SWB in higher education contexts. Crucially, this paper extends beyond the scale development to explore the profound implications of this research for management education. By integrating SWB into management curricula and institutional cultures, this study underscores the potential for higher education to significantly contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being. It highlights how nurturing SWB in management education can foster more resilient, empathetic, and socially responsible future leaders, addressing a critical need in contemporary business environments and society at large.