IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v172y2025ics0190740925001288.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Longitudinal effects of school connectedness on adolescents’ academic engagement: Mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction and the examination of gender differences in the mediation model

Author

Listed:
  • Xia, Yu
  • Ren, Menghao
  • Luo, Xiaohang
  • Wu, Mingping
  • Jiang, Nan
  • Han, Xinyi
  • Zhao, Ruoshui

Abstract

Exploring the factors influencing adolescents’ academic engagement and identifying strategies to enhance it remain one of the crucial issues in psychological research. Guided by ecological and developmental frameworks, this study conducted a longitudinal design (with a six-month interval) involving 1,217 adolescents, aiming to explore the effects of school connectedness on adolescents’ academic engagement, along with the mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction and the examination of gender differences in the mediation model. Firstly, the results found that classmate connectedness and school belonging could significantly positively predict academic engagement, whereas teacher connectedness was not significant. Secondly, mediation model analysis showed that classmate connectedness and school belonging could indirectly affect academic engagement by satisfying adolescents’ autonomy, relatedness, and competence needs; the mediating effects in the relationship between teacher connectedness and basic psychological needs satisfaction were not significant. Moreover, gender differences were revealed in mediation model. Specifically, for boys, predominantly classmate connectedness influenced their academic engagement by satisfying their psychological needs; for girls, predominantly school belonging influenced their academic engagement by satisfying their psychological needs. This study deepens the understanding of adolescents’ academic engagement and enriches the theoretical and empirical discussions, providing practical guidance for promoting adolescents’ academic engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Xia, Yu & Ren, Menghao & Luo, Xiaohang & Wu, Mingping & Jiang, Nan & Han, Xinyi & Zhao, Ruoshui, 2025. "Longitudinal effects of school connectedness on adolescents’ academic engagement: Mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction and the examination of gender differences in the mediation mo," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:172:y:2025:i:c:s0190740925001288
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108245
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740925001288
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108245?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:172:y:2025:i:c:s0190740925001288. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.