Modeling the Relation Between Self-Esteem, Loneliness and Engagement as Factors of Children Achievement İn Science

Abstract

Students' mental health plays an important role in child's daily life. Many studies declared that self-esteem, loneliness and engagement could be a crucial factors that affect students' learning and performance in school. This study is examining the relationship of these three factors with child's achievement in science. The study involved 260 (grade 4 to grade 6) Arab children studying at Arab schools in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia. Data were collected via three questionnaires (for self-esteem, loneliness and the third one for student engagement), and student science achievement determined by students' GPA scores from their schools. All the questionnaires are valid and reliable according to the Cronbach’s Alpha value. The correlational data analysis yielded a negative correlation between self-esteem and loneliness while there is a positive correlation between self-esteem and engagement and between self-esteem and achievement in science. Furthermore, the results showed that both students’ self-esteem and engagement is significantly predicted students’ achievement in science. Furthermore, results reveal that all the goodness-of-fit indexes fulfilled the requirement of the acceptable model fit with significant paths and correlation. The Model has provided a reasonable explanation of the structural model of students’ self-esteem, loneliness, engagement and achievement in science.