Pupils' Sense of Well-Being and Classroom Educational Factors*) **)

The concept of school effectiveness is usually defined in terms of cognitive pupil achievement; some schools are more capable than other schools in reaching higher levels of pupil achievement when student background characteristics are taken into account. This chapter examines the relationships that exist between pupils' sense of wellbeing at school, student achievement scores and student background characteristics and classroom organizational factors and teacher characteristics. In the hypothesized model of influences all the expected relationships are represented with to the right the dependent variables and to the left the explanatory and control variables. It is expected that there are direct relationships between classroom and teacher variables and pupils' sense of well-being. Pupils' sense of well-being can be defined as the presence or absence of specific positive and/or negative attitudes and experiences vis a vis school and education. This broad concept encompasses several components that are believed to constitute the major part of the affective domain.