Self-esteem and Academic Achievement Among Adolescents

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to analyse what strategies are pursued in order to protect self-esteem when it is threatened by a negative self-evaluation of school competence. Participants were 838 secondary-school students from the seventh to the ninth grades. Data were collected using Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents, together with a Scale of Attitudes towards School. Our results show that there are significant differences between the self-esteem enjoyed by successful and unsuccessful students in the seventh grade; such differences disappear in the eighth and ninth grades. They also reveal success-related differences in domain-specific self-evaluation. We also found that students with low levels of academic achievement attribute less importance to school-related areas and reveal less favourable attitudes towards school. We discuss these results in terms of Harter's self-esteem model and Robinson and Tayler's self-esteem protection model.