European Journal of Psychology of Education, Volum 40, article number 8, (2025)

This study investigated the development of study engagement from the end of upper secondary school through the first and second years of higher education. The participants experienced the challenges related to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic while they were either university students or preparing for university entrance exams. The results indicated that most students tended to experience a drop in study engagement during the first wave of COVID-19 compared to the pre-pandemic level; however, they managed to boost their engagement back to previous levels approximately 6 months later. Students who managed to recover their engagement also tended to have higher socio-emotional skills than students who were struggling with study engagement before the pandemic or who started to struggle during the pandemic.

A sense of belonging is crucial for mental health and well-being, but immigrants may find achieving a sense of belonging elusive. This study examined the relationship between sense of belonging and mental health among Finnish native, and first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents (N = 61 540) in Finland. Moreover, we estimated whether sense of belonging buffered the negative effect of experienced discrimination on mental health.

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We developed a six-item Compact Acculturation Scale (CAS) based on common items on comprehensive acculturation scales and examined it with two designs using data from the Finnish Annual Youth Future Report Survey of 2023 (N = 744 immigrant-origin youth, IOY). This study shows that CAS is a reliable and robust instrument that can serve us in investigating acculturation both by variable- and person-oriented approaches.