The present paper analyses the relevance of academic engagement in the process of students dropping out of school. Previous studies have consistently shown strong associations between engagement and students’ achievement outcomes. The increased attention given to academic engagement in recent years is also visible in the efforts of stakeholders in higher education to increase engagement and, consequently, to reduce dropout. The relationships between engagement and dropout rates are somewhat fuzzier, vigor, dedication, and absorption vary inconsistently in students at risk. Using a correlation research design, we tested several dimensions of academic engagement as predictors of early dropout intentions on a sample of first-year students (N = 1063). The results showed that psychological academic engagement of students is a significant predictor of early dropout intentions. Differences in academic engagement given by family background and academic context were also tested. The implications of the results are discussed in the light of possible interventions for increasing academic engagement of university students. Also, suggestions for including employers in academic engagement and dropout interventions are given.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an event that placed humanity in a context where confrontation with uncertainty, isolation, life threats, and significant changes in one's life were on a scale that exceeded by far any previous individual or community crises. The interest of the present research was to investigate the relationship between meaning in life (MiL) and existential anxiety (EA) with personal internal resources such as creativity, playfulness, well-being, and personal meaning. A total of 451 participants from 48 countries (mean age 34.93 years, standard deviation 12.62, 31.9% men, 67.4% women) were questioned via online questionnaires between May and June 2020. Cluster analysis was performed on the meaning in life and existential anxiety that generated four categories of persons: Reactive, Superficial, Preoccupied, and Dedicated. Well-being and internal resources were associated mostly with the Dedicated type and less with the Reactive one. Arguments relying on the existential positive psychology suffering model and the hostile world scenario are presented to support the results and plead for interventions that elicit meaning, stimulate creativity, and guide people in finding purpose in order to ultimately promote psychological and mental health.

The study used descriptive and multivariate statistics analytical methods to explore relationships between the highest level of education expected by 15‐year‐old Romanian students and factors associated with student background (personal and academic), school characteristics and selected beliefs and social–emotional skills. The study employs PISA 2022 public use microdata and is guided by Bourdieu's theory of capital and habitus, building on Reay's extension of Bourdieu's concept of habitus to include affective and emotional dispositions. The recent interest in students’ social and emotional skills offers an opportunity to enrich the model adopted for educational expectations. Furthermore, the novelty of the educational expectations model is that it operationalises habitus through the social and emotional skills synthesised in the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development Big Five Model. An empirical contribution of the study is to draw attention to the relatively large percentage of students (16%) who avoided answering the question on educational expectations, which may be associated with a sense of uncertainty concerning future educational and career paths. In addition to the expected effect of school achievement and family capital on educational expectations, the study findings reveal that high educational expectations are associated with the growth mindset belief, and curiosity, perseverance and assertiveness social–emotional skills. The negative association between stress resistance and high educational expectations raises concerns about the pressure and mental health issues experienced by higher achievers.

The topic of well-being in the workplace has gain significant attention from researchers and organizations due to its impact on workforce productivity and the costs associated with managing mental health challenges. In recent years, the body of literature on this topic has expanded considerably, emphasizing the effects of evolving workforce dynamics following the COVID-19 pandemic. Key changes in what is called the 'post-pandemic workforce' (Wang et al., 2023) include increased remote work, flexible work arrangements, and virtual team collaboration, business disruption and operational changes (Khor et al., 2023). Additionally, growing uncertainty, coupled with the increasing integration of artificial intelligence and automation across industries, has reshaped work environments at almost every level (Wang et al., 2023). Scholars consistently highlight the negative consequences these changes have on employee well-being. These include feelings of job insecurity, social isolation, stress and anxiety, as well as emotional exhaustion (Wang et al., 2023). Furthermore, findings from large-scale global surveys bring out that employees across the world report experiencing these consequences, suggesting that the impact of these new organizational policies and work arrangements is widespread. According to the Gallup 2024 Report-State of the Global Workplace, 20% of the world's employees experience daily loneliness, equating to 1 in 5 employees. The prevalence of loneliness is slightly higher