When adolescents with high self-concept lose their engagement in school

Abstract

Engagement in school and self-concept are two main constructs to explain the school adjustment. To understand how engagement might change during adolescence, we analyzed early and middle adolescents’ engagement in school (cognitive, affective, behavioural, and personal agency) as a function of their level of self-concept. Participants were 685 adolescents, 296 males (43.2%) and 389 females between 11-17 years old. Among early adolescents, students with high self-concept always reported more cognitive, affective, behavioural, and personal agency engagement than students with low self-concept. However, among middle adolescents, students with high self-concept reported only higher affective and behavioral engagement than students with low self-concept. High self-concept middle adolescents reported levels of cognitive and agentic engagement that were the same as their low self-concept peers, suggesting that these high self-concept middle adolescents had lost their earlier high levels of cognitive and agentic engagement.; La motivación escolar y el autoconcepto son dos constructos claves del ajuste académico. Para entender cómo la motivación escolar cambia durante la adolescencia, se analizó la motivación académica de adolescentes tempranos y medios (cognitiva, afectiva, conductual e implicación personal) y su autoconcepto. La muestra fue de 685 adolescentes, 296 hombres (43,2%) y 389 mujeres de 11 a 17 años. Los adolescentes tempranos con alto autoconcepto siempre indicaron mayor motivación cognitiva, afectiva, conductual e implicación personal que los de autoconcepto bajo. Sin embargo, los adolescentes medios con alto autoconcepto solo indicaron mayor motivación afectiva y conductual que los de bajo autoconcepto. Los adolescentes medios con alto autoconcepto indicaron iguales niveles de motivación cognitiva e implicación que los de bajo autoconcepto. Estos resultados sugerirían que los adolescentes medios con mayor autoconcepto habrían perdido sus niveles altos de motivación cognitiva y escolar de la adolescencia temprana.