Wellbeing and the NSS: the potential of mindfulness and self-compassion for an enhanced student experience

High levels of stress, anxiety, negative thoughts and emotions are being increasingly reported amongst university students and all impact negatively upon academic performance and student satisfaction. A cross-sectional design was adopted to explore how personality traits and attitudes relevant to wellbeing (i.e. mindfulness, positive and negative affect, perceived stress, self-criticism and resiliency) could best predict student satisfaction as measured by a simulated National Student Survey (NSS). It was found that students who scored higher in mindfulness, positive affect and resiliency reported higher levels of satisfaction on the NSS. Contrarily, negative affect and perceived stress significantly predicted lower levels of satisfaction on the NSS. Mindfulness was the strongest predictor of higher NSS scores; however, students who criticise themselves (the opposite of self-compassion) do not appear to benefit from mindfulness. A directive for introducing ‘life skills’ within higher education environments, with the purpose of building more resilient and better-performing graduates through mindfulness and self-compassion, is discussed