School engagement and self-esteem among Turkish secondary school students: A moderated-mediation model for academic achievement and gender

The study aimed to examine the direct relationships between school engagement, academic achievement, and self-esteem, and whether academic achievement mediated the relationship between school engagement and self-esteem among Turkish secondary school students. An additional aim of the study was also to test whether these associations were moderated by gender. The study sample consisted of 402 adolescents (207 female-195 male) studying at the secondary school, aged from 11 to 14 years old. The study findings showed both the significant direct positive associations among the studied variables and the mediating role of academic achievement in the relationship between school engagement and self-esteem. It also found that the direction, strength, and structure of the direct and indirect relationships among the studied variables did not differ between the two gender groups. In conclusion, students who have higher levels of school engagement tend to show improvements in their academic achievement, and achieving better educational performance promotes higher self-esteem. Directions for future research and application were discussed.