Browsing by Author "Vinni-Laakso, Janica"

The aim of this study was to examine the stability and change between students' perceived learning difficulties, self-esteem, and school burnout over time. It has been recognized that learning difficulties, self-esteem and school burnout are somewhat stable. There is some evidence that learning difficulties are connected to lower levels of well-being, especially to self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Still, there are some studies that contradict those findings. Most of the previous studies of learning difficulties and well-being have been cross-sectional. Thus, more evidence is needed in order to draw conclusions about the effect learning difficulties might have on students' well-being. The connections between self-esteem and well-being are also recognized, but the causation between self-esteem and well-being remain unclear. School burnout is quite recently discovered phenomenon which depicts students' burnout in the school setting. The main objective in this study is to examine the dynamics between students' perceived learning difficulties, the level of self-esteem, and school burnout symptoms using a longitudinal data. The data consists two measurement times gathered from the schools in a southern Finland city. The participants (N = 372) were ninth graders in compulsory education at 2004 (age 15-16) and first year students in general secondary education at 2005 (age 16-17). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to specify latent constructs. Time invariance of the latent constructs was tested across measurements. Cross-lagged panel model was utilized to test the connections between latent constructs across different time points. The stability of self-esteem and school burnout were in line with previous findings. Surprisingly, perceived learning difficulties were not that stable. Students' perceived learning difficulties did not predict change in levels of self-esteem nor school burnout symptoms. In addition, self-esteem did not predict change in school burnout symptoms or perceived learning difficulties. In turn, school burnout predicted change in both levels of self-esteem and perceived learning difficulties. Self-esteem did not have an effect in later school burnout, rather the other way around. Thus, the findings confirm that self-esteem is the effect on burnout symptoms, not the cause on well-being. School burnout turned out to have a central role in the dynamics between perceived learning difficulties, self-esteem, and school burnout.