Evolution of self-efficacy, student engagement and student burnout during a semester. A multilevel structural equation modeling approach

Recent studies reported that student well-being is lower than the well-being of the general population. Also, forms of well-being seem to vary over time and might depend to self-regulatory mechanisms. In the present study, we employ the Social Cognitive Theory to investigate the evolution of two well-being variables (i.e., student engagement and student burnout) during a semester considering the role of self-efficacy in the process. Using a longitudinal approach, we analyzed 635 sets of answers from 135 undergraduate students. Our self-reported questionnaires assessed student engagement, student burnout, and general self-efficacy. We used multilevel structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Results suggested that self-efficacy fully mediates the relationship between the measurement moment and student engagement but has only a partial mediating effect in the case of student burnout. Furthermore, our results suggest that an increase in self-efficacy might compensate for the negative relation between measurement moment and burnout.