Academic achievement was once thought to be the most important outcome of formal educational experiences and while there is little doubt as to the vital role such achievements play in student life and later (Kell, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2013), researchers and policy makers are ever increasingly turning to social and emotional factors, as well as the relationships among them, as indicators of student well-being and psychological development (Chernyshenko, Kankaraš, & Drasgow, 2018; Frydenberg, Martin, & Collie, 2017; Moore, Mok, Chan, & Lai, 2006). Indicative of this movement is the recent addition of social and emotional measures to established Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measures (e.g. PISA, OECD, 2019). These measures include, according to Chernyshenko et al. (2018), emotional regulation (e.g. stress resistance, optimism), task performance (e.g. motivation, persistence, self-control) and compound skills (e.g. metacognition, self-efficacy). Consistent with this theme, you will find six quality empirical studies in this Issue that examine some of the complexities of such factors, some related to academic achievement, others not, having a legitimacy in their own right.

Academic achievement plays a role in the studies by Colmar, Liem, Connor, and Martin (2019) and Martinez, Youssef-Morgan, Chambel, and Marques-Pinto (2019). For Colmar et al. (2019), the capacity of elementary school students to respond to academic setbacks, academic buoyancy, was not predictive of academic achievement. However, academic buoyancy effects were demonstrated for both reading and mathematics achievement in Australian students when mediated by self-concept. Psychological capital resources (e.g. efficacy, hope, optimism, resilience) are foregrounded in Martinez et al.’s (2019) examination of Spanish/Portugese university students’ engagement and achievement. Their findings showed that students who report being engaged in learning are more likely to be users of psychological capital who in turn are more likely to achieve higher academically.

Academic achievement is integrated also into the work of Eakman, Kinney, Schierl, and Henry (2019), where the focus is on the complexities of the emotional and social lives of returned veterans and service personnel. In a comprehensive study, learning climate support, post-traumatic stress, depression, self-efficacy and academic problems are linked to achievement showing, among other findings, that self-efficacy, less academic problems and autonomy supporting learning environments are positively related to achievement. Moreover, these factors persisted irrespective of depression or post-traumatic stress levels.

Achievement goals (Elliot, 2005) underpin the studies by Cho and Kim (2019) and Chen, Elliot, and Sheldon (2019). The former examined longitudinally South Korean secondary students and also investigated self-determined motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Among some complex findings, Cho and Kim (2019) showed that early autonomous motives were related positively to mastery-oriented goals in the following year, which in turn were related to increased autonomous motives in the next year. The latter study explored psychological need support (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) in concert with achievement goals in their Chinese university sample showing, among other results, the importance of mastery-approach goals as mediators in linking autonomy support and self-determined motivation.

Procrastination, academic engagement and the use of multiple social network sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) are the core elements of Closson and Bond’s (2019) study with Canadian university students. In a very timely investigation, they reported that the use of certain social network sites contributed to procrastination and mal-adaptation to university life while other sites, the less complex ones, had less negative outcomes.

Each of the above studies adds significantly to our current understandings of the complexities of learning. The inclusion of longitudinal work in this Issue is pleasing as is the focus on social media influences. Greater attention could be paid to more qualitative data-gathering to support the strong quantitative data demonstrated here. While much has been done in examining the effects of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning (e.g. Durlak, Domitrovich, Weissberg, & Gullotta, 2015), greater integration of these strategies into teaching and learning needs to be undertaken, and researched, at all levels of education.

I know you will appreciate reading these articles, as I have, as their contributions provide theoretically and empirically sound platforms for future investigations.

Finally, a sincere thank you to the independent reviewers who facilitated the process to publication. Thanks also to the Editorial staff who keep us all on task.