Finland : Satisfied Students, Less Schoolwork, and High Learning Outcomes Can It Be Real?

Abstract

Finland has been ranked the world’s happiest country four years in a row. How is this reflected in schooling and learning outcomes? Also, in the two-decade history of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, Finland’s learning outcomes have provided years of glory as one of the world’s top-performing nations. When looking at the relationship between knowledge and life satisfaction, Finland stood out in the PISA 2018 study, being the only country with both high reading performance and life satisfaction levels. This begs the question of whether life satisfaction and knowledge are the opposite ends of a double-edged sword, and is Finland only an exception to this phenomenon? This chapter reflects the Finnish genre of happiness and its association with learning outcomes.