Relationship between Classroom Structure and Students’ Academic Engagement Mediated by Academic Self-efficacy

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of academic self-efficacy in the relationship between classroom structure and students’ active academic engagement. The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population of study consisted of all undergraduate students studying in the academic year of 2018-2019 at all branches of Farhangian University, Urmia, Iran, with 700 students among, whom 248 individuals were enrolled using stratified random sampling. The participants completed the Classroom Structure Questionnaire (Elliot and Church, 2001), the School Engagement Scale (Wang, Willett, and Eccles, 2011), and the Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (McIllroy and Bunting, 2002). The data were analyzed in LISREL using structural equation modeling. Based on the results, the research model fitted the data very well. The mediating variable of self-efficacy was positively correlated with engagement (p-value = 0.37) and authority (p-value = 0.24) at the significance level of 0.001. However, self-efficacy was negatively correlated with difficulty of evaluation (p-value = -0.29) at the significance level of 0.001. In general, the results showed that a positive classroom atmosphere can increase students’ academic engagement, academic self-efficacy, and academic optimism.