Flourishing minds, thriving students : a study of mental well-being in accounting : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Accounting at Massey University, Manawatū Campus, New Zealand

Abstract

This study examines the role of mental well-being in student academic success among accounting students in Malaysian universities. Despite the rigorous demands of accounting education, mental well-being remains an underexplored factor in academic achievement, particularly within non-Western contexts. While existing research has largely focused on mental well-being challenges such as stress and anxiety, the influence of positive mental well-being on academic success has received comparatively less attention.

To address this gap, this study employed Keyes’ (2002) Dual Continua Model (DCM) to assess how emotional, psychological, and social well-being, alongside mental well-being challenges, influenced students’ academic success. Student success has customarily been measured using traditional academic performance indicators such as Grade Point Average (GPA) and Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), along with student engagement and satisfaction. The findings revealed that psychological well-being was the strongest predictor of student success. It positively influenced all indicators of academic success. While emotional and social well-being positively affected engagement and satisfaction, they did not directly translate into higher academic performance. Among the mental well-being challenges, depression had the most detrimental impact, negatively affecting both performance and engagement, whereas stress showed a dual effect, increasing engagement while lowering satisfaction.

Additionally, academic success was examined across student mental well-being groups using the DCM (flourishing without challenges, flourishing with challenges, moderately well without challenges, moderately well with challenges, and languishing with challenges). The presence of a flourishing with challenges group suggests that students can face mental well-being challenges while still experiencing high levels of positive mental well-being. This reinforces the importance of recognising positive mental well-being and mental well-being challenges as distinct but interconnected continua rather than as a rigid binary concept. Most students fell into the moderately well with and without challenges groups. The most notable differences between groups were in engagement and satisfaction rather than GPA and CGPA. Overall, students classified as flourishing without challenges demonstrated the highest levels of success, whereas students in the languishing with challenges group exhibited the lowest.

This study contributes to the literature on mental well-being, particularly in accounting education by examining how both positive well-being and well-being challenges shape academic success. The findings underscore the value of promoting flourishing as a foundation for accounting student success and offer practical insights for universities, educators, and policymakers in developing supportive strategies that enhance well-being in higher education.