The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem In The Relationship Between Psychological Well-Being And Self-Efficacy And Academic Hope Among Female Students of The Secondary School (Grade 2)

Students, as the future builders of the country, are considered as one of the most important strata of every society. Therefore, the factors that help them to have better academic performance are of great importance. Academic hope and self-efficacy are among these factors. Self-efficacy is considered as an important and key concept in Bandura's social cognitive theory. Self-efficacy refers to the confidence that a person feels about his abilities to perform a certain activity. This concept has a significant impact on the amount of effort and the level of a person's performance and means a person's judgment about his abilities to perform a specific action. Academic self-efficacy is also considered as a part of general self-efficacy, which is specifically defined as the ability of a person to understand his ability to perform tasks necessary to achieve academic goals, and it means confidence in performing academic tasks such as reading books, answering questions in classroom and preparation for tests and questions raised in classroom. Academic hope is also considered as a kind of educational belief or expectation, a belief through which a person expects to get positive results in his education. According to experts, hope is a dynamic cognitive system that, as one of the constructs proposed in positive psychology, has positive effects in various fields, including education and training, and causes the academic progress of students. Self-esteem and psychological well-being are among the factors affecting hope and academic self-efficacy. The structure of psychological well-being is considered as a combination of positive feelings and positive performance, which has a significant relationship with success and the absence of laxity and weakness. Self-esteem is also defined as "a person's feeling of worth and his approval of himself". Self-esteem is considered as one of the main factors in the optimal development of children and adolescents. Benefiting from self-esteem is considered as a central and essential factor in emotional and social adaptation and one of the components of mental well-being. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between psychological well-being, self-efficacy and academic hope with the mediating role of self-esteem among female students of the secondary school (grade 2) in Mahabad.
The present study is considered as a correlational-descriptive research, and applied research are considered in terms of objective. The statistical population of this study included 2289 female students of the secondary school (grade 2) of Mahabad city in the academic year of 2022-2023. In order to select the sample, 329 people were selected according to Cochran's formula, using cluster random sampling method and in several stages. In this way, four schools were selected from the schools of Mahabad city and then twelve classes were randomly selected from the classes of these schools. For more certainty, 345 questionnaires were distributed among the students and finally 320 accurate and reliable questionnaires were returned. In order to collect data, this study used Ryff, the 42-item Psychological Wellbeing (PWB) Scale, Rosenberg self-esteem scale, the Academic Hope Scale (Khormaei, & Kamari), and Morgan-Jinks Student Efficacy Scale.
The process of data collection was such that students were invited to cooperate and questionnaires were provided to them after giving their consent. The inclusion criteria were female students of the secondary school (grade 2) who were studying in one of the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades and the exclusion criteria was the unwillingness of the participants to continue working with the researchers. Finally, the collected data were analyzed using SPSS26 and SMARTPLS4 and the structural equation method based on the three-step approach of partial least squares.
The findings of this study show that there is a positive and significant relationship between psychological well-being and self-esteem (p≤0.0001, β=0.200). Also, there is a positive and significant relationship between self-esteem and academic self-efficacy (p≤0.0001, β=0.668) and academic hope (p≤0.0001, β=0.792). Self-esteem plays a mediating role in the relationship between psychological well-being and academic hope (p≤0.0001, β=0.134) and academic self-efficacy (p≤0.0001, β=0.134). In explaining the relationship between psychological well-being and self-esteem, it can be stated that high self-esteem is one of the positive and effective factors in mental health.
People who feel good about themselves, usually feel good about life and have the ability to face problems and challenges with high confidence and handle it. In explaining the relationship between self-esteem and academic self-efficacy, it can be said that students with high self-esteem have a more positive attitude towards themselves. So it can be concluded that as the person's attitude towards himself/herself becomes more positive, the more likely it is that a person will use his/her maximum abilities to perform assigned duties and responsibilities. Also, in the relationship between self-esteem and academic hope in explaining these findings, it can be stated that people with high self-esteem have more creativity and high self-confidence.
Also, it has been found that people with high self-esteem have an internal source of control and are happier. There is a significant relationship between these factors and having hope in people, and it makes people have more hope in work and academic matters, and finally, to explain the last hypothesis, it can be stated that psychological well-being is an effort to realize one's potential abilities and self-esteem. As a person's evaluation of himself/herself and building a concept about his characteristics and abilities, it can be a basis for creating, maintaining and promoting hope and academic self-efficacy among female students of the secondary school (grade 2).
Experts have also confirmed that self-esteem has a significant impact on academic success and performance, because people with high self-esteem pay more attention to their strengths and have a better evaluation of themselves. Also, the presence of psychological well-being in people leads them to greater success, healthier social communication and ultimately higher physical and social health.
Due to the importance of self-efficacy and academic hope variables, and taking into account the results obtained from the current research, which revealed that there is a significant relationship between psychological well-being and self-esteem with these two variables, it is recommended to counselors, psychologists, school officials and teacher try to design and implement counseling programs with the aim of improving students' psychological well-being and self-esteem. Some of the limitations of this study were that this relationship is found only between female students of the second secondary school, so the results should be cautiously generalized to male students and other grades.
Also, another limitation was that the data collection process was time consuming. Also, the use of self-report instruments may partially distance the main answers of the participants from the real answers. It is recommended to other researchers to examine the factors affecting the self-efficacy and academic hope of students in a qualitative study and in a more in-depth way, this study can also be implemented in male schools and other educational grades.