Understanding student well-being in an Indonesian Islamic boarding school : the roles of school climate and teacher empathy

Abstract

Over the last decade, the well-being of students has emerged as a growing concern in educational research. This problem is particularly important in Indonesian Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) where adolescent students learn, pray, and reside in the same setting. While institutional factors such as school climate have received growing research attention in this context, empirical evidence on the relational dimension of teacher empathy in shaping student well-being in Indonesian pesantren remains limited. This study, therefore, examined the extent to which student well-being was predicted by perceived school climate and teacher empathy, and explored how students' and teachers' own experiences accounted for these relationships. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed in the study. During the quantitative phase, 260 senior secondary students completed a modified PERMA-Profiler and the What's Happening In This School (WHITS) questionnaire, as well as an Empathy Scale for Teachers adapted to have students rate their teachers' empathy as they perceive it. Rasch modelling, descriptive statistics, and simple linear regression were used to analyze the data. Subsequently, semi-structured interviews were used in the qualitative phase of the study, involving three students and three dormitory teachers through maximum variation sampling. Data from the interviews were analyzed using hybrid thematic analysis and then merged with qualitative and quantitative data using a joint display. Overall, students reported being moderately satisfied with their well-being, school climate, and teacher empathy. The school's climate was a significant predictor of student well-being (β = .629) and explained about 39.5% of the variance. The relationship between teacher empathy and student well-being was also significant and positive (β = .372), but explained less variance (13.9%). These patterns were confirmed with qualitative findings. Students indicated that supportive peer relationships, belongingness, meaningful participation, and spiritual values were more central in their well-being than positive emotions. Meanwhile, the role of teacher empathy was identified as most significant in meeting students' academic needs or emotional difficulties. Confirming this, teachers view empathy as a core part of their responsibility in nurturing students, yet they acknowledge that this is often hindered by tight schedules, heavy workloads, and large class sizes. Overall, within this pesantren, the institutional climate proves to be a comparatively stronger determinant of student well-being than teacher empathy, and empathy served as an important source of emotional support, yet not as a substitute for a supportive school climate.