Modeling Causal Relationships between Academic Self-Efficacy, Goal Orientations, Achievement Emotions and Academic Well-being in university students

This study aimed to model causal relationships between academic self-efficacy, goal orientations, achievement emotions, and academic well-being in university students. The research method was correlational. For this purpose, a sample consisting of 332 university students (141 male and 191 female), responded to the Achievement Goal Questionnainre-Revised (Elliot & Murayama, 2008), the Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (Zajacova, Lynch & Espenshade, 2005), the Achievement Emotions Questionniare-Revised (Abdollahpour, 1394), the Schoolwork Engagement Inventory (Salmela-Aro & Upadaya, 2012) and the School Burnout Inventory (Salmela-Aro, Kiuru, Leskinen & Nurmi,2009). Results indicated that for the total sample and for male and female university students, the partially mediated model of positive and negative achievement emotions on the relationship between goal orientations and academic self-efficacy with academic well-being had a good fit for data. The results of the group specificity of structural relations showed that the relationship between goal orientations, academic self-efficacy, achievement emotions, and academic well-being was equivalent for both groups. Furthermore, all of the regression weights in the hypothesized model were statistically significant, and the model’s predictors accounted for 59% and 65% of the variance in academic engagement and academic burnout, respectively. Based on the finding of this study the part of the available variance in academic well-being in the context of prediction of these behavioral motivational models by goal orientations and academic self-efficacy accounted for university students’ positive and negative emotions.