Field work phase I (form April until December 2014) encompassed conducting of structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups with free listing and cultural consensus questionnaires. The sample included upper secondary school students enrolled in the third and fourth grades from 27 gymnasiums and vocational schools from Split, Rijeka, Osijek and Zagreb.

Interviews with school principals and psychologists/pedagogues were conducted to gain more comprehensive understanding of student's problems in education, opportunities for continuing higher education and finding employment, family, leisure time as well as socio-cultural and economic circumstances in the place of living and schooling. Everyday and good life characteristics were discussed with students along with their personal experiences in education, family, personal relationships and friendship, plans for future life and the most stressful and happiest life events.
Characteristics of the good life were discussed in focus groups and free-listing exercises were performed to collect a list of elements that students used to describe everyday life cultural domains. Lastly, cultural consensus questionnaires were conducted to investigate shared cultural knowledge about everyday life domains in each investigated school.