TOWARDS A CAUSAL MODEL OF LEARNED HOPELESSNESS FOR HONG-KONG ADOLESCENTS

Understanding students' learned hopelessness and academic self-esteem is important because the sense of controllability and competence perce ption can predict deficits in achievement-oriented behaviours and achi evement performance. A survey was conducted to examine the role of lea rned hopelessness and academic self-esteem in academic achievement. St ructural equation modelling was used to analyse the mediational roles of learned hopelessness and academic self-esteem in the academic achie vement of 165 Hong Kong junior secondary students. The findings implie d that learned hopelessness and academic self-esteem are distinct cons tructs which play separate mediational roles between prior academic fa ilure and academic achievement. However, the model comparisons indicat ed that there was no direct effect of learned hopelessness on academic self-esteem or vice versa.