Constructing the Concept of Student Well-Being within Indonesian Islamic Higher Education

Abstract

This qualitative study investigates teachers’ and students’ conceptualization of well-being at an Islamic higher education institution in Indonesia. Drawing on a constructivist research design, data for this study were collected via interviews with three experienced teachers and a focused group discussion with eight students. The collected data were analyzed using a thematic analysis framework assisted by the NVIVO Pro 11 application. The results of this study reveal that, for the teacher participants, well-being should be conceptualized with reference to spiritual and transcendental dimensions (chaironic). For the student participants, meanwhile, genuine positivity with mutual respect and understanding (eudemonic) should be more emphasized. Nevertheless, both teachers and students believe that subjective well-being (hedonic) is particularly important in the fulfillment of physical and material needs on campus. This study also uncovers that, besides a context-driven conceptualization of well-being, a set of preconditions is required in order to make well-being part of campus culture, university policies, and teaching and learning practices at Islamic higher education institutions.

1. Introduction

Academic achievement has been a major parameter of success of educational services, especially for higher education institutions. The success level of educational institutions, on many occasions, is measured by how well their students and teachers perform academically. However, the increasingly complex life of modern society makes academic achievement no longer the only measure of educational success. The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, for instance, was considered insufficient to measure one’s intelligence after the discovery of the Emotional Quotient (EQ), Social Quotient (SQ), and Multiple Intelligence (MI) theories (Otero 2015; Sternberg 2015; Boyatzis et al. 2015). In addition to academic achievement, students’ well-being (welfare, happiness, satisfaction, and comfort) is becoming an increasingly important benchmark for the success parameters of educational services, including higher education institutions (Jang-Jones and McGregor 2019).

Well-being is a complex and multidimensional concept whose measures depend on how and in what contexts it is conceptualized. In a more general sense, well-being refers to a condition where a person has balanced physical and mental health so that they are able to carry out their life tasks well. Well-being also allows a person to realize their life potential, exercise virtues, and enjoy the various roles that they play in life. In the literature, there are at least three conceptualizations of well-being, namely, hedonic, eudemonic, and chaironic perspectives. According to Rizvi et al. (2021), the hedonic perspective tends to equate well-being with subjective happiness or pleasure, thus known widely in the literature as subjective well-being (SWB) (Rizvi et al. 2021; Ed Diener 1984; Edward Diener 2009; Ed Diener and Ryan 2009). This conceptualization of well-being is indeed based on an individual’s personal evaluation of their subjective psychological states.

Meanwhile, the eudemonic perspective, as pointed out by Tiberius and Hall (2010), originates from Aristotle’s idea that welfare and happiness are behaviors and activities that reflect virtue, excellence, and the full development of one’s potential. The eudemonic view recognizes the meeting point between various traits, such as self-acceptance, self-development, life goals, positive relationships with others, and environmental mastery and autonomy (Ryff 2013). While the hedonic view places happiness as a subjective state that humans pursue, the eudemonic perspective defines happiness as an active effort to pursue and achieve virtues and noble ideals. The eudemonic perspective of well-being, then, gives special emphasis on self-actualization and self-growth and development.

Finally, the chaironic perspective, a relatively recent addition to the conceptual discussion of well-being, pays special attention to spiritual and transcendental aspects as important parts of well-being (Rizvi et al. 2021). More specifically, Wong (2010) suggests that chaironic well-being denotes “a spiritual gift” and “a spiritual blessing”, whose representations can be embodied in forms of spirituality and religiosity. It should be noted, however, that, although spirituality and religiosity both indicate the existence of a great being beyond human beings, spirituality refers more to the concept of one’s connectedness to something greater than oneself, while religiosity reflects more formally institutionalized religious symbols and rituals. In this respect, people may identify themselves as spiritual, feeling connected to supernatural realities, but not feeling religious because they feel that they are not affiliated with any formal religion.

In an effort to bridge the Western conceptualization of well-being, which is primarily based on the hedonic and eudemonic perspectives, and the Islamic conceptualization of well-being, which gives special emphasis to the chaironic perspective, Rizvi et al. (2021) suggests the need for a dual perspective where theoretical models that are in line with Islamic views are integrated with Western perspectives for a wider application among non-mainstream communities. Rizvi et al. (2021) further elaborate that the Islamic term itself means submission or surrender, and submission to God’s will is viewed as the path to peace and happiness. Through total submission to God by trying to achieve personal goals, such as the commitment to performing prayers, zakat, and self-control, Muslims move from a low spirit (an-nafs al-amarah), which is marked by sparkling hedonistic pleasures and material possessions, towards an introspective and conscious soul (an-nafs al-lawwamah) where, with one’s full awareness, one actively seeks to draw closer to God. Taken together, the ultimate goal of all is to achieve peace (an-nafs al-muthmainnah) through total commitment to faith. Therefore, spiritual health is a key component of well-being for those who identify themselves as religious, including Muslims. In other words, philosophically, Islam approaches the concept of well-being from a chaironic perspective, which gives space to a spiritual–transcendental dimension that can only be realized by total submission to God Almighty. At the same time, Islam views hedonic well-being and eudemonic well-being as mediating conditions that should ultimately lead to chaironic well-being.

During the past decade, existing research in the area of students’ well-being at the college level has investigated a variety of issues mainly based on the construct of well-being from the hedonic perspective. Such issues include the influence of academic buildings on students’ well-being (Muhammad et al. 2014), the role of teachers in promoting students’ well-being (Eloff et al. 2021), the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ well-being (Sarasjärvi et al. 2022; Sood and Sharma 2020; Liu et al. 2021), the effect of assessments on students’ well-being (Jones et al. 2021), distant well-being profiles of performance-oriented students (Alessandri et al. 2020), and the well-being of students in master’s and doctoral degree programs (Ryan et al. 2022).

However, little is known in the field of education about research and studies on the issue of students’ well-being from the eudemonic and the chaironic perspectives. Regarding eudemonic well-being, two studies are worth noting, a study of the relationship of learning engagement and student well-being (Boulton et al. 2019) and a correlational study of applied learning experiences and well-being as critical factors for success on societal and individual levels (Trolian and Jach 2022). In these two studies, the idea of well-being is operationalized in terms of personal growth and self-realization, thus emphasizing the investigation of the representations of students’ eudemonic well-being. As for the case of chaironic well-being, studies seem to be scattered across disciplines, and in the field of education, they include a study on the quality of life and spirituality of Indian university students (Deb and Strodl 2019) and a correlational analysis of the quality of life, spirituality, religiousness, and personal beliefs of medical students (Krägeloh et al. 2015). These two studies highlight the extent to which the ideas of spirituality and religiosity may have different impacts on students’ well-being across disciplines and in different learning and teaching contexts.

In the Indonesian education context, there have been growing concerns regarding the idea of students’ well-being at the college level in both the scholarly and policy contexts. In the scholarly context, the issue of students’ well-being at the college level has been explored, although in a rather fragmented way, showing its developing stage. A number of topics have been investigated during the past few years, such as the burnout prevalence and well-being of students in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic (Cipta et al. 2022), the mental health and well-being of Indonesian medical schools (Kloping et al. 2022; Lili et al. 2022), the mental well-being of Indonesian students compared with that of UK students (Kotera et al. 2022), and the Indonesian perspective of students’ well-being (Maulana et al. 2018). These studies, however, are all based on the construct of students’ well-being operationalized from the hedonic perspective. One study by Adriani (2018) in the Indonesian higher education context is worth mentioning, as it addresses students’ happiness in relation to the idea of religiosity, thus assuming some facets of chaironic well-being.

Given the fact that Islamic higher education is an important part of the Indonesian higher education system, where about 896 out of 4.593 higher education institutions in Indonesia (20%) are Islamic higher education institutions (Handini et al. 2020; DIKTIS|Directorate of Higher Islamic Education, Ministry of Religious Affairs n.d.), conducting research on students’ well-being in this particular higher education context is worth undertaking. Such an investigation will contribute to the existing literature, especially regarding the lack of empirical evidence for the chaironic perspective of students’ well-being.

In the policy context, deliberate efforts to include the ideas of well-being in Indonesian education policies across grade levels have been initiated (Wibowo et al. 2021). The well-being of students has now become a public concern that needs addressing, especially in the context of providing quality education services that are based not only on academic achievement but also on the maximum promotion of students’ potential and well-being in all respects. Indeed, studies have shown that students’ well-being greatly influences their academic achievement, physical and mental health, and sense of comfort in the education institutions where they study (Aulia et al. 2020). Similarly, researchers such as Govorova et al. (2020) and Jang-Jones and McGregor (2019) have investigated how schools as educational institutions can affect various aspects of students’ well-being. Overall, these studies underscore an important finding that the urgency of conceptualizing and implementing various aspects of students’ well-being has become a global trend in various educational institutions and across grade levels (primary, secondary, and tertiary).

Based on the background and responding to the gap in the literature discussed earlier, the primary objective of this research is to investigate how students and experienced teachers of an Islamic higher education institution in Indonesia conceptualize forms of students’ well-being in the contexts of academic and non-academic lives on their campus, and how Islamic higher education institutions throughout the country can develop a new approach to students’ well-being for possible inclusion and implementation in university policies.

2. Method

This qualitative study incorporates a constructivist approach, which primarily aims to explore and establish the meanings of lived experiences attached by individuals or groups to a social phenomenon of interest (Creswell and Creswell 2018, p. 54). Students’ well-being in an Islamic higher education institution context constitutes the focus of the study, with three experienced teachers and eight students, namely, four undergraduate and four graduate students, as the research participants. These research participants were purposively selected to meet the research objectives. Although a teacher with more than three years of teaching experience is usually considered an experienced teacher, in this study, experienced teachers were chosen based on extensive teaching experiences (over 10 years), research and publications on the issues of concern, and community service. Meanwhile, student respondents were selected based on years of study to enable them to share their perspectives. More importantly, for teacher and student respondents, availability for research participation became the primary consideration in choosing research participants.

In terms of data collection, the researchers conducted a one-time interview with each of the three experienced teachers, each of which lasted for about 40–60 min. Meanwhile, in collecting the data from student respondents, the researchers conducted one focused group discussion session with the eight student participants, and this lasted for about 1 and a half hours, in which the researchers chaired the whole discussion. Depending on their respective engagement level, each respondent had the opportunity to share their views on the questions and/or points of discussion.

The collected data were then analyzed using a thematic analysis from Braun and Clarke (2006, pp. 87–93) consisting of six stages: (1) getting familiar with the data, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing the report. In analyzing the data, the researchers also used the NVIVO Pro 11 application to help with the thematic analysis. In conducting the stages of the data analysis, it should be noted that the data analysis in this study was an interactive rather than a linear process, especially for stages 3, 4, and 5, where the processes of finding emerging themes and recurring themes, reviewing the themes, and defining the themes were interactive in the sense that one stage was consulted to confirm the other as necessary to finally come up with well-defined themes.

3. Results

3.1. Well-Being in Higher Education

Educational success is typically measured by students’ academic achievement. This applies to individuals, institutions, and countries. In tertiary education institutions, the student achievement index is an important measure of student achievement, especially when it is related to their opportunities of finding a job and continuing their studies. Therefore, students keep competing to achieve good grades by doing and completing all assignments given by lecturers. Similarly, lecturers are also enthusiastic about educating and exploring students’ potential, often giving lecture assignments that take up a lot of the students’ time and thoughts. As a result, many students are reported to experience mental fatigue when they must complete too many assignments with a very limited completion time. This undoubtedly has negative implications for students’ mental health. The term academic burnout is currently very popular among higher education academics around the world, and it describes a mental condition of being tired and losing motivation due to various factors (Lin and Yang 2021, pp. 1816–17).

Physical and mental health are important factors in education, including higher education. This is what, among other things, makes welfare, happiness, satisfaction, and well-being important parameters of success in the world of higher education. In the context of higher education in the global context, for example, Victoria University in Wellington (VUW), New Zealand, defines student well-being as a state of subjective balance in which students have the physical, social, and psychological support necessary to develop cultural and spiritual identity, physical abilities, healthy lifestyles, healthy families, and participation in society (Victoria University of Wellington 2023). Victoria University of Wellington does not only propose a definition of well-being but, more importantly, also has a project on student well-being. Kirsty McCLure, the Director of Student Experience and Well-being VUW, stated the following: “I led a diverse team of specialist student services that contribute to the wellbeing of students, especially with the clinical expertise for students at risk to either themselves or others, and our health promotion team. However, supporting the wellbeing of our student community is a collective responsibility, we all have different roles to play.”(personal communication, 3 February 2023). The involvement of various experts in promoting and maintaining students’ well-being at VUW indicates that this is a very important aspect in today’s higher education.

The importance of student’s physical and mental health has caused a paradigm shift in the criteria for success in higher education. Academic achievement is not the only measure of student success in tertiary institutions; physical and mental health are also important measures of success. Thus, universities are not only responsible for making students successful academically, but they are also accountable for students’ physical, mental, and spiritual health. Student well-being must be counted as an integral part of higher education services.

3.2. Well-Being from an Islamic Perspective

As indicated earlier, as a religion, Islam acknowledges the conceptualization of hedonic well-being, which originates in a person’s subjective psychological states, and of eudemonic well-being, which centers on self-realization for the pursuit of virtues. More importantly, however, Islam prescribes that hedonic eudemonic well-being should serve as the mediating catalyst that ultimately leads to chaironic well-being, which resides in spiritual well-being represented in various forms of spirituality and religiosity (Rizvi et al. 2021). The Qur’an indeed describes a person’s ideal mental condition as when one feels calm and knows that what they are doing is approved by God and does not conflict with His directions. Joshanloo and Weijers (2019, pp. 243–44) emphasize that these ideal conditions begin with a human understanding of their functions and duties as servants of God. So the real condition of well-being is the total self-surrender to God in all aspects of human life. This is what distinguishes the Islamic and secular perspectives of a person’s well-being. Secular psychology describes the condition of a person’s well-being as solely achieving individual happiness (humanistic), while Islam views that a person’s well-being is the achievement of individual happiness because of their obedience and submission to God (Joshanloo and Weijers 2019, p. 252).

3.3. The Construction of Student Well-Being

3.3.1. Experienced Teachers’ Perspectives

In discussing the conceptualization of well-being in the context of Islamic higher education, all interviewed teachers agreed that the implementation of student well-being in tertiary institutions is a demand that needs to be fulfilled, and we need to immediately reinforce the conceptual framework of well-being policies related to campus life. Islam provides a space for welfare from a hedonic perspective based on subjective well-being (SWB) and from a eudemonic perspective based on self-actualization. However, Islam also emphasizes the importance of well-being outside of these two perspectives by perfecting it with a chaironic perspective, where well-being is defined and manifested in a spiritual and transcendental framework. The question is how this ideal concept of Islamic perspective on well-being can be further exercised in Islam higher education. Experienced Teacher 1 expressed this point during an interview: “in the current context of Islamic higher education, we still have a lot of work to do, especially in defining the term of well-being in a more applicable concept, and more operational stages of its implementation.” (Experience Teacher 1, Interview).

While the inclusion of well-being in public education policy has taken place for a long time in the Western world, it seems to remain at the conception stage in the Islamic higher education context in Indonesia. Therefore, the interviewed experienced teachers proposed the pre-conditions described below to make well-being an integral part of the Islamic higher education system.

Changing the Mindset

A university is seen as an academic institution, and, hence, academic achievement is considered the most important outcome of the education process. However, looking at education in a more holistic and humanistic way leads us to fully understand that, in addition to academic achievement, mental health and spiritual well-being are not less important to achieve.

Experienced Teacher 1 in this study expressed his point in an interview: “… yes, we do have to change our mindset. We also have to change our mentality… I think most of us tend to follow Dweck’s fixed mindset theory. What we see here is that this university depends on our contribution, but people don’t just work for the institution. Some people work for material compensation, while others work for happiness, and spiritual satisfaction.” (Experienced Teacher 1, Interview). Furthermore, this teacher emphasized that the learning process needs to be seen as a conditioned mental process so that all stakeholders in campus life, especially students and lecturers, have the same view about the importance of adopting well-being and institutionalizing it in campus life. At the same time, this teacher also stressed the importance of the character of work ethic, learning ethic, and ethos of adapting to change as important parts of changing mindsets.

Most Indonesian Islamic universities have been able to provide academic as well as health services to support their students. As a result, students are academically competitive with their counterparts from other universities. However, the increasing challenges for university students, such as internationalization and immediate academic outputs, make life in universities harder and more demanding. Students need additional support to make their lives feasible and enjoyable. Mental and spiritual supports are, therefore, important for students’ well-being.

Systemic Change

Every educational institution consists of several elements that contribute to the whole education process. To ensure that students and professors understand the importance of students’ well-being, the whole system needs to be adjusted. This means that student well-being should become a part of the university’s mainstream education policy. This will include curriculum, facilities, services, and campus rules and regulations. Experienced Teacher 3 argues that “… the problem that we will face as the main challenge is the curriculum. So, to find spirituality as a part of well-being formation, systemic change needs to be implemented. Maintaining spiritual health as an important component of well-being needs a by-design process. This process includes a curriculum, courses, lecturers, and regulations, and the biggest challenge will be the curriculum.” (Experience Teacher 3, Interview).

In a similar tone, Experienced Teacher 1 contends that “… we need to change and strengthen positive and constructive mindsets about how a culture of well-being can be realized because of collaboratively systemic work that involves students, lecturers, staff and all levels of the university management. They need to have one vision and a common understanding to work together and make well-being ideas work in campus life”.

Human Resources Awareness

Student well-being can only be realized optimally if all layers of campus human resources, starting from leaders, lecturers, staff, and fellow students, understand their respective roles in realizing campus life based on student welfare. This shows that all services to students, both academic services and non-academic services, for example, learning activities in class, academic guidance with academic advisors, thesis writing guidance, services in study programs, and other services in faculties, must be oriented towards principles that maintain and support student well-being and always comply with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) set by the university.

Experienced Teacher 2 points out that “shared understanding of university leaders and lecturers on the importance of student well-being is extremely crucial, because it will affect students’ mental health. The university can start with, among others, the establishment of a center for student well-Being that provides counseling services to students and some research on well-being within the Indonesian and Islamic contexts.” (Experienced Teacher 2, Interview).

Taken together, all the teacher respondents view the chaironic perspective of students’ well-being as the most fundamental one because it offers the ultimate spiritual and transcendental well-being, which serves as the foundational basis for other forms of well-being. In addition, they also emphasize that, in order to make students’ well-being an integral part of the campus community, three preconditions should be guaranteed: a change of mindset, systematic transformation, and mutual awareness.

3.3.2. Students’ Perspectives

Hedonic Perspective of Students

Some of the themes that emerged during the focused group discussion could be classified as part of the expression of the students’ concern for well-being from a hedonic perspective, namely, subjective pleasure and happiness and momentary experiences of positive or negative feelings. For example, students underlined that they need to feel comfortable and satisfied with the availability and convenience of facilities and infrastructure; the adequacy of library collections, including the ease of access to scientific journals necessary for further study; assignments; and projects.

For most students, it will be very uncomfortable and can even lead to feelings of frustration when, under very limited time pressure, the need for access to quality scientific literature is difficult to obtain because of the limited access that the university provides to them. It is interesting to note, though, that, from the analysis of existing data, students are generally very vulnerable to feeling uncomfortable or unhappy when the dimensions of well-being from the hedonic perspective are not met, as illustrated by the example of difficulty in obtaining access to needed equipment and devices.

Based on the data analysis, there are two important things that affect the formation of well-being from this hedonic perspective, namely, comparisons and high expectations. Nowadays, students can easily access information about facilities at tertiary institutions other than their own. They can see and compare the facilities that they receive with those of other universities. This comparison allows students to assess the position of their university in terms of facilities such as books, laboratories, and internet access. Once they know that some other universities have better and more advanced learning facilities, they will assume that their university will not be competitive enough.

The fact that students keep comparing their universities with other (probably better) institutions in several respects leads them to set some high expectations for their university. When the university does not meet these expectations, disappointment and discomfort arise in carrying out their activities. Having a well-resourced laboratory with up-to-date equipment, a 24 h library, and unlimited access to electronic journals are some examples of high expectations for facilities that support student comfort in learning, not to mention access to health services, career guidance, and counseling, which are, of course, very important to support the careers and lives of students.

Eudemonic Perspective of Students

In the focused group discussion session, students also expressed various things related to their concern for well-being from a eudemonic perspective, namely, a sense of comfort and happiness based on opportunities for self-actualization and growth. For example, they mentioned ideas related to resilience in learning, overcoming the challenges of teamwork, emotional maturity, and accepting hard work as a natural process of learning. Of course, it is very interesting that, in general, students do not see coursework as a major source of discomfort or unhappiness. On the contrary, they view these assignments as opportunities to actualize and develop their potential. Discomfort or even frustration usually arises when the fulfillment of the hedonic dimension is not achieved, thus indirectly affecting feelings of discomfort in carrying out activities that have a eudemonic dimension.

In general, students understand the consequences of their choice of study program and the assignments that come with it. Even though they face a lot of tough challenges in going through lectures and completing daily assignments, as well as final assignments, these are all part of the learning process. Sometimes there are indeed things that are quite disturbing, such as uneasy communication with professors or too many similar assignment deadlines. However, almost all students do not perceive these as serious problems that interfere with their well-being. They just need to compromise their life comfort to face those challenges.

Chaironic Perspective of Students

While it was clear that students could identify the hedonic and eudemonic perspectives of well-being during the focused group discussion session, it was not easy to identify whether they felt the existence of the chaironic perspective. The only time this dimension emerged was when the focused group discussion deliberated feelings of discomfort related to the power relationship between professors and students when a professor’s style of communication was considered unacceptable by the students, but they did not have the power to control it. Students tend to accept this with resignation and surrender to the destiny from God to cover up their disappointment or despair. These attitudes are accompanied by the hope that God will give justice for what they experienced.

What is interesting to observe in the phenomenon above is the fact that there are times when students who experience discomfort, or are hedonically or eudemonically unhappy, can find a solution in the chaironic dimension. Submission to God is exercised as an expression of spirituality and religiosity, which is believed to provide serenity, comfort, and happiness. Awareness of this spiritual aspect shows that, in Islamic higher education institutions in Indonesia, students are aware of the existence of this chaironic well-being. This will have implications for the formulation of well-being aspects for students of Islamic higher institutions.

4. Discussion

The inclusion of students’ well-being in education policies and practice has been a public concern during the past few decades. The main argument is that academic achievement is no longer the sole criterion for education accomplishment. In addition to academic achievement, students’ physical and mental health should also be considered in defining parameters of success in providing quality education services. Therefore, one can no longer evaluate success levels in education by measuring excellence in academic performance alone. The constant pressures to achieve high academic performance and to work on a number of final projects with tight deadlines are only examples of how the education system challenges mental health more than physical conditions. Therefore, the idea of well-being, which covers physical, mental, personal, social, and spiritual aspects, has been pushed in the global education context to be included in education policies and practice alike.

Education in Muslim countries, like Indonesia, is not different from that in countries that have applied measures of students’ well-being as part of their educational policies and practices. The discourse of well-being in education has been discussed in various academic forums in Indonesia. Indonesian scholars such as Wibowo et al. (2021) and Adriani (2018) have argued for the inclusion of well-being in the Indonesian education context. While the general approach of Indonesian Islamic education towards student well-being remains closer to the Western approach to well-being, relying heavily on the hedonic and eudemonic perspectives, scholars such as Rizvi et al. (2021) and Joshanloo and Weijers (2019) offer a dual approach to well-being in the sense that the Islamic approach to well-being that should enrich the Western approach by bringing another layer without dismissing the other two layers, that is, by acknowledging hedonic and eudemonic forms of well-being but treating them as pathways leading to the ultimate one, spiritual and transcendental well-being (See also Adriani 2019).

The teacher participants in this study highlighted the importance of the inclusion of well-being in Indonesian Islamic higher education. This is not only because well-being has become an international trend in education, but also because of the growing challenges that Islamic higher education students now experience. The existence of a support system that can help students to overcome their academic and non-academic challenges is urgently needed. As discussed earlier, these experienced teachers not only argued for the fact that students need non-academic support but also reminded us that Islam has its own mechanism for preventing or curing mental problems, namely, spiritual exercise. This important finding confirms that of previous studies demonstrating that spirituality has an impact on the well-being of Indian university students (Deb and Strodl 2019), and that spirituality, religiousness, and personal beliefs may have impacts on medical school students’ quality of life (Krägeloh et al. 2015). While further investigation is needed to uncover how spiritual exercise can help students’ mental health, the findings of this study support the claim that religious awareness can help mental stability (see Abdul-Rahman 2017; Joshanloo and Weijers 2019; Adriani 2018). This claim was confirmed during the discussion with the students when they found that letting things go and letting their destiny work on its own as effective solutions to facing the uncomforting situations that they experience in both their academic and non-academic lives.

Another interesting finding of this study is the fact that, to the majority of the student participants, teacher–student interpersonal interactions are important factors that may lead to students’ well-being in either a positive or negative way. Indeed, student–teacher power relations often place students in a powerless situation, which could cause emotional distress and discomfort. This particular finding underscores one fundamental aspect of the eudemonic conception of well-being, which is having positive relationships with others (Ryff 2013). One way to promote students’ well-being is, therefore, to ensure that student–teacher relationships, despite their unequal power relation, are based on genuine positivity and mutual understanding and respect.

5. Conclusions

The conceptualization of well-being in the Western education context refers to two well-being perspectives, namely, the hedonic perspective, which is based on subjective well-being (SWB), and the eudemonic perspective, which is rooted on self-actualization for the pursuit of virtues. Such conceptualization shows the level of maturity because it refers to an established tradition both conceptually and practically. The participants of this study, however, highlighted the importance of complementing these two perspectives with chaironic well-being, which gives special emphasis to spiritual well-being as a spiritual gift or spiritual blessing.

Preconditions are necessary to make well-being part of the culture of campus life, and these include a precise and contextual conceptualization of well-being suitable for implementation in the Indonesian Islamic higher education context. Other preconditions are having a willingness to change one’s mindset, being ready for systemic change, and having mutual awareness.

Similarly, the student participants also highlighted the relative importance of embracing hedonic and eudemonic well-being in campus life. It was interesting to note, however, that, during the one-and-a-half-hour focused group discussion session, rarely did they address the idea of chaironic well-being as spiritual well-being. Only toward the end of the discussion did they mention the idea of spiritual resolution as a last resort to deal with the emotional distress and discomfort coming from the unequal power relations between students and teachers and other figures of campus authorities. In this regard, all student participants stressed the vital importance of having genuine positivity in promoting student–teacher interactions based on mutual respect and understanding.

In Islamic higher education, the conceptualization of well-being goes beyond the hedonic and eudemonic paradigms. It rather centers on the idea of well-being at a spiritual and transcendental level, as an embodiment of the concept of the perfect human being, which not only provides space for subjective well-being (personal concerns about happiness) and self-actualization in various forms of virtue but also a manifestation of spirituality and religiosity to achieve the ultimate well-being as a spiritual gift and spiritual blessing through a total submission to God, the Almighty.

It Is important to note that this research focuses on students’ perception and some experienced teachers’ opinions on students’ well-being in higher education with a limited number of resources involved. This research indicates that Indonesian Islamic higher education has not paid close enough attention to student’s well-being, although students and professors equally argue the importance of the matter. The researchers do not by any means intend to generalize the findings to all Islamic higher education institutions, but rather ring a wake-up call to stakeholders of higher education to give more attention to student’s well-being and propose an approach that can be followed up to create policies, strategies, and programs related to students’ well-being.