Effects of academic motivation and emotional intelligence on academic engagement in Peruvian high school adolescents

The study aims to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of academic motivation and emotional intelligence on academic engagement. It is a quantitative and predictive research composed of 416 Peruvian students through structural equation analysis (SEM), who answered three instruments to evaluate the variables. The results refer significant effects of emotional intelligence and motivation on school engagement, simultaneously emotional intelligence predicted motivation with optimal SEM goodness of-fit indices. Additionally, a multigroup SEM analysis was performed to determine the structural invariance of the predictive model as a function of sex and age. We conclude the mediating role of academic motivation between emotional intelligence and academic engagement, which is important for better academic performance and achievement. The mediating model was equivalent between females and males, as well as between younger and older adolescents.