Comparing Educational Engagement and Educational Self-Regulation in Students With and Without Behavioral-Emotional Problems

Behavioral–Emotional problems are debilitating disorders that could be related to academic failure and learning. Reviews suggested that only a few students with internalizing behavioral problems are successful in school. They are often less educated than their peers in school. As a result, they have lower self–confidence. One of the challenges of education is facing these students. Academic engagement is among the important variables concerning education and learning; thus, it is necessary to recognize the associated underlying factors. Academic self–regulation is also essential in learning as well as academic and career success. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare academic engagement and academic self–regulation in students with and without behavioral–emotional problems.

This was a causal–comparative study. The study population was all female high school students (first period) form Isfahan City, Iran, in the academic year of 2018–2019. Initially, 320 students were chosen by cluster random sampling method. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) was used for screening. Then, 50 students with internalizing behavioral problems were selected as the study sample. Additionally, 50 students without internalizing behavioral problems were chosen as the controls; they were matched with the test group in demographic information. Finally, the Academic Engagement Questionnaire (Zerang, 2012) and the Academic Self–Regulation Questionnaire (Boufard et al., 1995) were performed in the study groups. The inclusion criteria of the study were as follows: students’ informed consent to participate in research; having moderate and higher intelligence quotient (no intellectual disabilities and educating in schools for typically–developing children); healthy eyesight and hearing; not presenting concurrent acute psychiatric disorders (the absence of disorders, such as depression and anxiety and psychosis in the student records). The exclusion criteria of the study included failure to complete research questionnaires and participating in behavior change and life skills training courses during the research period. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS at a significance level of 0.05. Descriptive statistics (mean & standard deviation) were used to describe the collected data. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the study data.

The obtained results indicated a significant difference between the study groups in academic conflict (p<0.001) and its dimensions, i.e., cognitive conflict (p=0.004), motivational conflict (p=0.004), and behavioral conflict (p<0.001). The value of ETA–squared for academic engagement and its dimensions were calculated as 10.4%, 8.2%, 8.9%, and 12.6%, respectively. Furthermore, there was a significant difference between the research groups in academic self–regulation (p<0.001). The ETA–squared value for academic self–regulation was measured as 16.7%.

According to the current study findings, students with behavioral–emotional problems in terms of academic engagement and academic self–regulation encounter complications and feel helpless in this regard.