Thriving Students

Grades 5-12+

To develop the student surveys, Fig first conducted focus groups with 34 students, aged 11 to 18, between December 2022 and May 2025. The semi-structured protocol asked students what helped them “feel good” in school. The diverse group of students (16 Black or African American, 12 white, 5 Latine, and 1 Native American) attended a range of schools in Washington State and Virginia: an alternative high school; two low-performing, public middle schools; a Christian middle school; and two college preparatory independent high schools.  

 

Across our sample, students said they wanted a school environment that is relevant now and for their future, helps them feel successful, promotes a feeling of connection with students and adults, and gives them voice and choice. Their responses align with two academic motivation theories: Expectancy-Value Theory and Self-Determination Theory.

 

The Thriving Student Survey measures student wellbeing in school and life (operationalized as Subjective Well-Being). We use OECD's recommended measure for life satisfaction (OECD, 2013) and adapt Diener et al.'s measure for school satisfaction (1985), an approach used in other educational wellbeing literature (e.g., Huebner, 1994; Tian et al., 2014). We measure student rates of motivation and amotivation to validate our scale for your organization.

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We measure student perception that their learning environment supports needs for utility value, peer relatedness, and student-teacher relatedness, autonomy support, and competency support. We developed sub-scales by adapting validated items.​​​ Using a sample of 1,800 across nine schools, we found internal consistency was good to excellent for all scales (α = 0.82–0.90, Ω = 0.82–0.92). The model also demonstrates an excellent fit: χ²/df = 1.93 p < .001, RMSEA = 0.044, CFI = 0.966, TLI = 0.960, and SRMR = 0.041.

 

Fig can modify the survey for use with college students or with students in grades 3-4.