The research in 60 seconds
Researchers reviewed Nordic studies that had tested tools for measuring subjective wellbeing in young people aged 10 to 24. Out of more than 3,000 records screened, only nine studies met their bar, covering seven instruments across Norway, Sweden and Denmark. No Finnish, Icelandic or cross-Nordic validation studies made the cut.
Four measures came out reasonably well-supported for use with young people: KIDSCREEN-27, SWEMWBS, EPOCH and MHC-SF. But the review also turned up real gaps. No study evaluated content validity, only two checked whether results held up over time, and different instruments often meant quite different things by "wellbeing".
So what?
Schools should keep measuring wellbeing. A wellbeing score only means as much as the question sitting behind it.
The seven instruments in this review weren't all measuring the same thing. Some focused mainly on life satisfaction. Others covered emotional, psychological and social functioning too. Two surveys that both call themselves wellbeing measures can rest on different ideas of wellbeing. In practice they may still overlap a good deal. A 2025 analysis of 28,189 pupils aged 11, 13 and 15 in the 2022 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey, covering Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, compared four widely used scales, including SWEMWBS, and found that they largely captured one general dimension (Four scales measuring mental wellbeing in the Nordic countries: do they tell the same story?). Adding more scales to a survey may therefore tell you little that is new. What matters more is whether the one you choose fits your question.
That said, the review gives leaders a reasonable place to start. Four instruments stood out in the Nordic studies reviewed:
KIDSCREEN-27 – its psychological wellbeing subscale held up well psychometrically in Norwegian 10 year olds.
SWEMWBS (Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale) – supported in Danish children aged 10 to 16 and Norwegian adolescents aged 15 to 21. In the Norwegian study, the short version was preferred over the full WEMWBS.
EPOCH – supported as a multidimensional measure of adolescent wellbeing in Swedish 16 to 21 year olds, covering engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness and happiness.
MHC-SF (Mental Health Continuum – Short Form) – supported as a measure of overall wellbeing in Swedish adolescents aged 14 to 18. It covers emotional, psychological and social wellbeing, but the authors advise against using those three parts separately, because the scores work better as one overall measure.
Support elsewhere was weaker or less clear. In one Norwegian study the psychological wellbeing subscale of KIDSCREEN-52 showed poor model fit, and the evidence for the Satisfaction With Life Scale in young people was less clear. Support for the four above also rests on small numbers of studies, mostly one each, and children under 14 are thinly covered.
That doesn't make these automatically the best four wellbeing surveys for schools. The review deliberately left out measures built specifically for school wellbeing. Its question was narrower: had these instruments been properly tested with Nordic young people in general populations? So the review does not point to one of these four as the answer. It points to starting with what each tool measures, who it has been tested on, and whether that matches what you want to find out.
The review also flagged a mismatch between what researchers usually check and what probably matters most in practice. Internal consistency, broadly whether the items in a scale hang together, was reported in every study. Content validity was not evaluated in any of them.
That gap matters because content validity asks the practical questions:
Are these questions relevant to young people?
Do students understand them the way researchers intended?
Do the items actually cover what the survey claims to measure?
What's missing?
Only one study, of the MHC-SF in Sweden, ran a pre-study with focus groups to check whether the measure appeared to measure what it should.
There's also good reason not to overread this review. The inclusion criteria were narrow by design. It excluded school-specific wellbeing measures, studies focused on particular illnesses or disabilities and publications not available in English.
The review covers young people aged 10 to 24. Staff wellbeing is outside its scope, although the questions below apply to staff surveys too.
So this isn't a ranking of every wellbeing survey available to Nordic schools, and it doesn't crown any one instrument as universally best.
What it does offer is a useful caution. Before acting on wellbeing data, schools need to know what their survey is actually measuring, whether it's been tested with young people like theirs, and what its scores can and can't tell them.
For school leaders
Define wellbeing before choosing the survey. Decide what you actually want to understand: life satisfaction, positive mental health, belonging, psychological functioning, or something broader. Start with the concept before reaching for whichever questionnaire is familiar.
Check the evidence behind the tool. If you're choosing a measure, look at instruments that have actually been tested with young people. The Nordic studies in this review supported KIDSCREEN-27, SWEMWBS, EPOCH and MHC-SF for young people, though each measures something different and suits different age groups. Ask:
Has it been tested with a similar age group?
Has it been tested in a comparable cultural or national context?
Do young people understand the questions as intended?
What does it cover, and what does it leave out?
Is the evidence independent of the company selling it?
Treat the score as evidence to investigate, and never as a diagnosis. A falling average is a reason to start a conversation. Combine survey results with other evidence: student voice, attendance, pastoral information, focus groups or interviews, patterns in behaviour or engagement.
A survey can tell you something may be changing. It won't necessarily tell you why.
