Longitudinal Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Academic Self-Efficacy Among College Students in China: Evidence From a Cross-Lagged Model

Yunfeng Luo; Wenjuan Gao; Xinqiao Liu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877343

Longitudinal Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Academic Self-Efficacy Among College Students in China: Evidence From a Cross-Lagged Model

Front Psychol. 2022 May 23:13:877343. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877343. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yunfeng Luo¹, Wenjuan Gao^{2

3}, Xinqiao Liu⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Management, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
² Institute of Higher Education, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
³ School of Public Administration, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
⁴ School of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the associations between self-esteem and academic self-efficacy among Chinese college students. Descriptive statistics showed that on average, students' academic self-efficacy experienced a downward trend in the first 3 years before rising slightly in the graduation year, and that male students had higher academic self-efficacy than females in the first 2 years, whereas female students' academic self-efficacy surpassed their male counterparts in the latter years. There were significant, positive associations between the two variables. With cross-lagged analysis, we found that students' self-esteem significantly predicted their subsequent academic self-efficacy from the freshman to the junior years, and the effects among male students endured longer and stronger. Implications of the findings were discussed.

Keywords: academic self-efficacy; cross-lagged models; gender differences; mental health; self-esteem.