Work-study boundary congruence: its relationship with student well-being and engagement

Abstract

We tested a work–study congruence model, in which student role congruence was related to student engagement and well-being via work–study conflict and facilitation. We found (251 working students; 70% female; mean age 24.68 years) greater congruence to be associated with better engagement and well-being, and conflict and facilitation to mediate partially between congruence and well-being, explaining 37.5% of the variance in engagement and 41.1% in well-being. The study demonstrates that the role congruence approach is useful to understand the experiences of working students and points to how interventions might assist students who struggle with multiple competing roles.