Japanese Psychological Research

2016, Volume 58, No. 4, 310319

doi: 10.1111/jpr.12126

Impact of School Psychological Environment Variables

on Happiness of Korean Youths
JI-HYE LEE* Seowon University

Abstract: This study analyzed the structural relationships between school-related psychological variables (teacher support, learning ow, friendship) and the happiness of
Korean youths, and compared structural equation models for middle and high
schools. Questionnaire data were collected from students in middle and high schools
in 10 cities and provinces of Korea. The nal data set from 870 students was analyzed with Amos 20.0. Goodness of t indices for the hypothetical model were good,
and all paths were signicant. That is, a model incorporating indirect and direct
impact of school-related psychological environment variables, such as teacher support, learning ow, and friendship, on the happiness of Korean youths is valid. Second, structural equation models for middle and high schools demonstrated
signicant differences. Therefore, different types of assistance are needed to
increase the happiness of students in middle schools and high schools.
Key words: Korean youths, school-related psychological environmental characteristics, happiness, structural equation model.

Freedom and the choices available to humans

increased signicantly during the 20th century.
In particular, most people in industrialized
Western democracies are now free to make
various choices in life in terms of careers,
spouse, religious beliefs, government structures, and so on, so as to live happy lives
(Kwan, 2009). Interests in fostering happiness
have also been gradually increasing in Korean
society. Numerous studies have been conducted in various subelds, including those
that posit that happiness during ones childhood inuences the general happiness of that
person when he or she becomes an adult
(Yang, 2008). Accordingly, there is a continually increasing body of research conducted on
children and adolescents (Ahn, 2008; Cho, Shi,
Choi, & Choi, 2008; Han et al., 2012; Kong,
2008; Kwak, 2007; Lee & Lee, 1997; Park,

Kim, & Kwak, 1998; Park, Kim, Kim, &

Min, 1999).
Han et al. (2012) compared the happiness of
Korean youths to that of other age groups,
nding that the subjective psychological wellbeing of youths was lower than that of seniors,
college students, and elderly groups. This
research showed that youths have various positive experiences in life, but they experience
relatively more negative emotions than those
of other ages, and they are not satised with
their lives. Such results emphasize the need
for additional research to identify which factors inuence the happiness of Korean youths.
Though the educational and social context
varies by country, the International Comparison Study on School Curriculum Organization
and Instruction Time (Bak, Lee, Lee, Kim, &
Kim, 2013), which analyzed the number of

*Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Ji-Hye Lee, Department of Education, Seowon
University, Cheongju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do 28674, Korea. (E-mail: wisdom56@hanmail.net)
2016 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Korean youth and school psychological environment

hours spent at school as a reference for the

organization and operation of school curricula,
academic schedules, and class schedules,
reported the following: Among OECD
nations, the average number of hours spent at
school, including class hours and after-school
activities, is 8 hr for middle-school and 67 hr
for high-school students in France; 6.3 hr for
Australian middle-school and high-school students; and 6.1 hr for middle-school and 6.6 hr
for high-school students in New Zealand. In
contrast, Korean middle-school students and
high-school students spend 8 and 9.2 hr at
school, respectively.
Given that Korean youths spend more time
at school than youths in other countries, it is
crucial to explore school-related psychological
environment variables that inuence their happiness. In general, school-related psychological
environment variables can be categorized as
pertaining to teachers, friends, or learning.
The impact of such variables on happiness has
been reported in other studies (Kim & Kim,
2014; Oh, 2010; Yoo, 2015). However, these
studies have reported the impact of teachers,
friends, and learning separately, and have
failed to approach this topic from an integrated point of view. Additionally, previous
studies that investigated the happiness of
youths utilized regression analysis, which
establishes a primary causal relationship, and
were limited in their ability to reect the
measurement errors that could arise during
investigation. Therefore, this study employed
structural equation models that can simultaneously reect potential measurement errors and
determine complex causal relationships. This
research selected teacher support from the
teacher category, learning ow from the learning category, and friendship from the friend
category as school-related psychological environment variables. By systematically investigating the relationships among these variables,
the current research aimed to provide an integrated model of factors that impact the happiness of youths. The systematic relationships
were generated based on the following logic.
First, teacher support is a positive resource
that can include provision of information,

311

interest, recognition, courteous listening, and

appropriate responses to students; these can
be important sources of support in the lives of
youths (Brewster & Bowen, 2004). Therefore,
the more youths recognize positive support
from teachers, the happier students are liable
to be. Further, teacher support is reported to
have a positive impact on learning. Few studies have investigated the relevance of the
direct variable learning ow, but it has been
shown that teachers who demonstrate a system of social support have a positive impact
on students learning, such as in class participation and academic achievement (Yune,
Ju, & Lee, 2013). Further, Kim (2005) illustrated that the degree of social support based
on general characteristics of youths is the highest with the teachers social support, and
teacher support has a particularly marked
impact on students friendships. In summary,
teacher support not only contributes to the
happiness of youths, but also positively inuences learning ow and friendships.
As shown above, learning ow and friendships, which are affected by teacher support,
directly inuence the happiness of youths.
Learning ow applies the concept of focus in
an educational context, as suggested by Csikszentmihalyi (1975). The state of ow is an
extremely enjoyable status that a learner
experiences when the learners behavior and
consciousness harmonize to successfully complete an assignment because the learners
attention is freely and exclusively used to
reach the goal of the learning exercise (Lee,
2009). Lee and Lee (2014) conducted a study
on the learning ow of Korean youths, and
reported that students who could better focus
on learning tended to be happier. Oh (2010)
also reported that middle-school students who
could focus on learning more than on hobby
activities were more likely to be happy.
Additionally, friendship is greatly related to
the quality of life in adolescence when peer
inuence becomes signicant. Lee and Han
(2000) claimed that youths who received highquality support from their peers tended to
have less social discontent and greater psychological well-being. Further, Kim, Kim, and
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J.-H. Lee

Hong (2009) noted that youths who received

greater love and emotional support from
friends had greater quality of life, while those
who were bullied had lower quality of life.
Based on such prior results, the current
study proposed a structural relationship
whereby among the school-related psychological environmental characteristics investigated
in this study, teacher support would directly
inuence the happiness of youths and indirectly inuence the happiness of youths
through learning ow and friendship. The
structural equation models describing such
relationships were investigated to determine
how these models differ according to the different school environments of middle schools
and high schools. In Korea, high-school students spend more time preparing for college
admissions than middle-school students, and
therefore, high-school students experience
more college admission-related stress than
middle-school students. Accordingly, this
research assumed there would be signicant
differences between the structural equation
models of high schools and middle schools.
The secondary purpose of this research was to
verify this hypothesis based on empirical data.
Furthermore, An (2009) reported that Korean
middle-school students and high schoolstudents differ in their psychosocial development and school adjustment abilities. An
(2009) also reported that Korean high-school
students display higher emotional stability,
more positive self-awareness, higher interest
in learning, and healthier relationships with
teachers. Several previous studies also examined the happiness of youths from a developmental perspective; all of these studies claim
that happiness levels of students decline with
ascending grade levels. In particular, happiness levels were found to decline as the grade
level advanced from elementary school to college (Park, Kim, & Han, 2012), and compared
to high-school students, middle-school students were reported to have relatively higher
happiness (Choi, Kim, Lim, & Kang, 2011)
and emotional stability (Lee, Lee, & Choe,
2008). Therefore, in order to identify the psychological environmental variables that
Japanese Psychological Association 2016.

increase the happiness of students, the developmental differences between middle-school

and high-school students must be taken into
consideration even though middle-school and
high-school students are all classied as
youths.
The results of this research, which demonstrate how school-related psychological environmental characteristics interact to increase
the happiness of Korean youths, will provide
timely implications regarding how to increase
the happiness of Korean youths. Furthermore,
these basic data will provide guidance in terms
of how we should help middle-school students
and high-school students differently to
increase their happiness. In summary, the
research questions were the following: First, is
a structural relationship between schoolrelated psychological environment variables
and their impact on the happiness of Korean
youths valid? Second, how do the structural
relationships of middle schools and high
schools differ?

Methods
Participants
This research was conducted on students of
20 middle and high schools in 10 different
areas in Korea. The surveys were distributed
via mail, and 870 out of 1,000 survey responses
were used for the nal analysis, after excluding
130 incomplete surveys. Of the 870 respondents, 421 (47.0%) were middle-school students, while 449 (53.0%) were high-school
students.
Assessments
Teacher support. To measure the various
types of teacher support that students receive,
we used the Social Support Appraisal Scale
(Dubow & Ullman, 1989). This scale is composed of 15 items in four subdomains of support: Emotional, Informational, Evaluational,
and Materialistic. Each question is answered
using a 5-point Likert scale, whereby higher
scores denote greater teacher support. Cronbachs in this study was .92 for the entire

Korean youth and school psychological environment

questionnaire, and the values for the support

subdomains were .91 for Emotional, .90 for
Informational, .89 for Evaluational, and .84
for Materialistic.
Learning ow. We operationally dened
learning ow as an extremely enjoyable state
that a learner experiences when the learners
behavior and consciousness are in synchrony
when successfully completing an assignment,
whereby the learners attention is freely and
exclusively used to reach the goal of the learning exercise. Cognitive ow and affective ow
were set as observation variables since they
effectively represent this pertinent condition.
The measurement of learning ow was developed based on domestic and international
ow-scale questions that were modied for
use with Korean youths (Suk, 2007). Each
question was answered via a 5-point Likert
scale. Cronbachs was .89 for the entire
questionnaire. The values for subdomains
were .87 for cognitive ow and .89 for
affective ow.
Friendship. Friendships were assessed via
a modied version of the Friendship Quality
Questionnaire (Parker & Asher, 1989), as
modied by Lee (2005). The survey consists of
40 questions, with subdomains consisting of:
Recognition and Interest, Conict Resolution,
Conicts and Mistrust, Help and Guidance,
Relationships and Entertainment, and Intimate/Personal Communication. Cronbachs
was .92 for the entire questionnaire. The
values for subdomains were .81 for Recognition and Interest, .70 for Conict Resolution,
.76 for Conicts and Mistrust, .85 for Help and
Guidance, .70 for Relationships and Entertainment,
and
.78
for
Intimate/Personal
Communication.
Happiness. Happiness was assessed via the
Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Argyle,
Martin, & Crossland, 1989), as modied into a
29-item version by Hills and Argyle (2002),
and subsequently made applicable to Koreans
by Heo (2009). Its subfactors consist of Condence, Self-control, and Positive Attitude. The

313

respective Cronbachs values in this study

were .83, .73, and .73. Cronbachs for the
entire questionnaire was .90.
Data Analysis
Hypothetical model. After reviewing the
previous research, we developed the hypothetical model shown in Figure 1. The exogenous
variable was teacher support, whereas the
endogenous variables were learning ow,
friendship, and happiness. Happiness was the
dependent variable for the endogenous variables, and learning ow and friendship were
parameters.
Analysis. Before analyzing the structural
relationships among variables, Pearson correlation coefcients were obtained to examine
their bivariate relationships, using IBM SPSS
for Windows Version 18. Then, structural
equation models were dened via IBM Amos
for Windows Version 20, and their goodness
of t indices (GFIs) obtained. Next, a
multiple-group analysis was conducted to
compare the structural equation models of
the middle schools and high schools. Specically, the structural equation models were
analyzed to assess the GFIs according to
measurement-invariance restrictions. Under
the assumption that the measurement variables were in the same condition in each
group, the regression coefcients of each

Figure 1 Hypothetical research model.

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J.-H. Lee

Table 1 Correlations between variables

Inf.
Eva.
Mat.
Cog.
Aff.
Rec.
Con.
Dis.
Hel.
Fel.
Com.
Conf.
Cont.
Pos.

Emo.

Inf.

Eva.

Mat.

Cog.

Aff.

Rec.

Con.

Dis.

Hel.

.936**
.898**
.904**
.202**
.337**
.147**
.060**
.043**
.119**
.109**
.108**
.466**
.465**
.455**

.908**
.899**
.187**
.325**
.149**
.100**
.106**
.171**
.181**
.188**
.441**
.445**
.443**

.867**
.208**
.316**
.100**
.058**
.012**
.071**
.113**
.079**
.443**
.431**
.486**

.146**
.287**
.173**
.062**
.106**
.132**
.132**
.119**
.395**
.392**
.401**

.721**
.028**
.151**
.171**
.203**
.028
.239**
.215**
.233**
.254**

.103**
.161**
.181**
.233**
.032
.239**
.326**
.388**
.350**

.509**
.486**
.466**
.382**
.430**
.109**
.110*
.121**

.537**
.509**
.257**
.576**
.002**
.064**
.055**

.828**
.318**
.823**
.192**
.235**
.230**

.332**
.807**
.280**
.326**
.321**

Fel.

Com. Conf. Cont.

.342**
.091** .273**
.051** .293** .917**
.050** .290** .910 .897**

Note. Emo. = emotional support; Inf. = informational support; Eva. = evaluational support; Mat. = material
support; Cog. = cognitive ow; Aff. = affective ow; Rec. = recognition and interest; Con. = conict resolution; Dis. = conicts and mistrust; Hel. = help and guidance; Fel. = relationships and entertainment; Com. =
intimate/personal communication; Conf. = condence; Cont. = self-control; Pos. = positive attitude.
*p < .05, **p < .01.

group were compared after the invariance

restrictions were applied to the factor weight
value of each group. If the model was appropriate, cross-validation would exist between
the groups. If cross-validation is established,
the regression coefcients can be analyzed at
the same level (Kim et al., 2009).
Next, the invariance of the nal structural
model was conrmed, to test the equality of
the parameters between groups. Then, the
expected values of the parameters for each
group, and their impact, were examined. Specically, if the path coefcients of the groups
differed, equivalence restrictions were applied
to test whether the coefcients were signicantly different. That is, a hierarchical model
with the invariance restrictions of the parameter was formulated to examine whether the
goodness of t was signicantly different. If
the model with the invariance restrictions of
the parameters and the 2 value of the unrestricted model were signicantly different,
then if the model with the invariance restrictions had a worse goodness of t value than
the unrestricted model, this signied that the
path-coefcients were different for each group
(Lee, 2009).
Japanese Psychological Association 2016.

Results
Correlations Among Variables
Table 1 shows that most variables were signicantly related to each other.
Research Model Verication
Table 2 conrms the model of the relationships among variables that affect the happiness
of Korean youths. All indices denoted good t
according to the criteria. Therefore, this early
hypothetical model was conrmed as the nal
model.
As shown in Figure 2, specic paths showed
that teacher support had a signicant impact
on learning ow ( = .337, p < .001), friendship ( = .135, p < .01), and happiness
( = .382, p < .001). Additionally, learning
ow and friendship both signicantly inuenced happiness ( = .217, p < .001 and
= .203, p < .001, respectively). Teacher support had the greatest direct impact on the happiness of the participants ( = .382, p < .001).
Learning ow and friendship acted as mediators between teacher support and happiness
(p < .05). Specically, the path teacher support
! learning ow ! happiness ( = .073) had a

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Korean youth and school psychological environment

Table 2 Goodness of t of the SEM and invariance conrmation of nal structural equation
model groups
2

Fit index
Criterion

>.05

SEM
Middle school
High school
Measurement invariance limit

435.015 (df
217.290 (df
220.665 (df
431.095 (df

=
=
=
=

86, p
86, p
86, p
86, p

< .001)
< .001)
< .001)
< .001)

RMSEA

GFI

TLI

CFI

NFI

.05.08

>.9

>.9

>.9

>.9

.073
.070
.069
.055

.920
.901
.910
.908

.932
.946
.950
.952

.933
.955
.959
.959

.945
.929
.935
.933

Note. RMSEA = root mean squared error of approximation; GFI = goodness of t index; TLI = TuckerLewis
index; CFI = comparative t index; NFI = normed t index.

greater mediated effect than teacher support

! friendship ! happiness ( = .027).
Middle-School Versus High-School
Models
Middle-school and high-school structural
equation models. The GFIs for the middle-

school group were 2 = 217.290 (df = 86,

p < .001), root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA) = .070, GFI = .901, Tucker
Lewis Index (TLI) = .946, comparative t
index (CFI) = .955, and normed t index
(NFI) = .929, whereas the indices for the highschool group were 2 = 220.665 (df = 86,
p < .001), RMSEA = .069, GFI = .910, TLI =

Figure 2 Structural equation model. M = SEM of middle schools; H = SEM of high schools. **p < .01, ***p < .001.
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J.-H. Lee

Table 3 Non-standardized coefcients of middle-school and high-school structural equation

models
Path

Teacher support ! learning ow

Teacher support ! friendship
Teacher support ! happiness
Learning ow ! happiness
Friendship ! happiness

Middle school

High school

Non-standardized

CR

Non-standardized

CR

.207
.097
.223
.208
.174

5.127***
2.034*
5.759***
3.644***
3.386***

.217
.089
.219
.191
.168

5.630***
1.942
5.770***
3.457***
3.377***

Note. CR = critical ratio.

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

.950, CFI = .959, and NFI = .935 (Table 2).

The t indices of both groups were acceptable.
Furthermore, the GFIs of the structural model
with the measurement invariance restrictions
were relatively good (2 = 431.095 (df = 86,
p < .001), RMSEA = .055, GFI = .908, TLI =
.952, CFI = .959, NFI = .933), indicating successful cross-validation such that the regression
coefcients between the groups could be analyzed at the same level (Kim et al., 2009).
Invariance of the models between groups can
explain the correlations between variables. One
method to conrm invariance between groups
is to test statistically the differences among hierarchical models. Therefore, we compared: the
unrestrained model (S0), which did not place
any restrictions on the middle-school and highschool structural equation models; the
restrained model (S1), with the same path coefcients in the two groups; the model (S2) with
not only the same path coefcients, but also the
same dispersion/covariance between latent variables; and the model (S3) with the same pathcoefcients, the same dispersion/covariance
between latent variables, and the same error
variance of the latent variables. All constrained
models differed from the unconstrained model
(p < .001). This result shows that the middleschool and high-school models had different
path-coefcients,
dispersion/covariance
of
latent variables, and error variance.
Path coefcients for middle-school and
high-school models. Based on the above
results, the middle-school and high-school
Japanese Psychological Association 2016.

models were explored to see for which paths

they differed. Here, non-standardized coefcients were used for the expected values of the
parameters. It is appropriate to compare the
path coefcients within a group using standardized coefcients, but it is acceptable to compare non-standardized path coefcients
between groups because the distributions
between groups are different (Kim, 2010).
These results are shown in Figure 2 and
Table 3.
For middle school, all paths were statistically signicant. For high school, all paths
except for teacher support ! friendship were
statistically signicant. Such results indicate
that teacher support does not directly inuence the friendship of high-school students,
unlike middle-school students. When the specic paths were compared, teacher support,
learning ow, and friendship inuenced the
happiness of middle school students to a
greater extent than high-school students.
To more strictly verify the signicance of
these parameter differences, hierarchical
restrictions were applied to pairs of parameters.
The hierarchical restrictions were that the
expected values of the path coefcients were
the same between groups. If the unrestricted
model and the hierarchically restricted model
had statistically different 2 values, this would
indicate that the hierarchically restricted paths
differed between the groups. As shown in
Table 4, all hierarchically restricted models differed from the unrestricted model. This

Korean youth and school psychological environment

Table 4

317

Equivalence constraints analysis of middle-school and high-school structural equation

models
2 (df )

d2 (dfd)

434.373 (170)
434.415 (171)
434.388 (171)
434.377 (171)
434.411 (171)
430.380 (171)

.042 (1)
.015 (1)
.004 (1)
.038 (1)
.007 (1)

<.001
<.001
<.001
<.001
<.001

Hierarchical model
Unconstrained model
Teacher support ! learning ow
Teacher support ! friendship
Teacher support ! happiness
Learning ow ! happiness
Friendship ! happiness

demonstrates that the structural equation models of middle school and high school were
different.

Discussion
This research considered the happiness of
Korean youths, and examined the relationship
between happiness and school-related psychological environment variables. We conrmed
the validity of a model predicting happiness
from measures of teacher support, with learning ow and friendship as mediators. In particular, we examined the differences between the
middle-school and high-school models. The
salient points based on the results are as
follows.
First, the goodness of t of the structural
equation model with teacher support as the
exogenous variable, learning ow and friendship as the endogenous variables, and happiness as the dependent variable, was
satisfactory. Such a result is consistent with
previous studies (Kim, 2005; Kim et al., 2009;
Lee & Lee, 2014; Oh, 2010; Yune et al., 2013),
particularly the nding that the happiness of
Korean youths was most inuenced by direct
teacher support. Learning ow and friendship
did not affect the happiness of youths to the
same extent as teacher support. Additionally,
learning ow as a mediator between teacher
support and happiness had a greater effect
than friendship as a mediator. This shows that
increasing learning ow based on teacher support was a more effective way to increase the
happiness of Korean youths than encouraging

friendship. However, since all direct and indirect paths were signicant, an integrated view
of fostering happiness is advised; instead of
focusing on individual variables, such as
teacher support, learning ow, and friendship,
separately, one should consider all schoolrelated psychological environmental characteristics from multiple perspectives.
Second, the structural equation models of
middle schools and high schools were analyzed
separately, and both provided satisfactory t.
That is, the nal middle-school and highschool models were both appropriate. However, the two models were signicantly different. The middle-school model exhibited
signicant parameters for all paths, whereas in
the high-school model, teacher support did not
inuence friendship. This nding is consistent
with studies of both Park et al. (2000), who
reported that teacher support affects friendship between high-school students less than
middle-school students, and An (2009), who
reported that high-school students display
more interest in learning and take more proactive approaches in relationships with teachers.
Such results are presumed to derive from the
college-admission-focused learning environment of high schools. Further, Korean highschool students are reported to have a more
positive development of subjective selfcondence regarding their future and sense of
purpose than middle-school students (Park,
1996); therefore, college-bound Korean highschool students can be understood as pursuing
their happiness by focusing their energy on
teacher support and learning ow to achieve
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J.-H. Lee

their goals. As such, in order to increase the

happiness of Korean youths, one must help
middle- and high-school students differently.
Specically, it is necessary to consider all variables, such as teacher support, learning ow,
and friendship, in order to help middle-school
students enjoy learning and create positive
relationships with friends, based on teacher
support. However, in order to increase the
happiness of Korean high-school students, teachers should strive to lead students learning
with teacher support.

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