The Effects of Self-Esteem, Academic Engagement, and Cooperation on Life Satisfaction among Elementary School Students: The Mediating Role of School-life Adjustment

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effects of self-esteem, academic engagement, and cooperation on life satisfaction among sixth-grade elementary school students, and to verify the mediating effect of school-life adjustment in these relationships. The data were drawn from the third-year dataset of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) 2018, conducted by the National Youth Policy Institute in 2020, with a total of 2,607 participants. Data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 and PROCESS Macro version 4.3 (Model 4). Correlation analysis and bootstrapping-based mediation analysis were performed to test the proposed relationships. The results were as follows. First, self-esteem, academic engagement, and cooperation all had significant positive effects on school-life adjustment. Second, self-esteem, academic engagement, and school-life adjustment showed significant positive effects on life satisfaction, whereas cooperation did not have a significant direct effect on life satisfaction. Third, school-life adjustment was found to have a significant mediating effect in the relationships between self-esteem, academic engagement, cooperation, and life satisfaction. In particular, cooperation influenced life satisfaction indirectly through school-life adjustment rather than through a direct path. These findings suggest that enhancing school-life adjustment plays a crucial role in improving life satisfaction among elementary school students and highlight the importance of educational interventions that support both individual psychological factors and school-life adjustment.