the mediating role of self-esteem in the relationship between psychological capital, academic engagement, and academic procrastination with academic performance among students in al-diwaniyah, iraq

Purpose: the aim of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of self-esteem in the relationship between psychological capital, academic engagement, and academic procrastination with academic performance among high school students in al-diwaniyah, iraq.methodology: the research method was descriptive-correlational with a structural equation modeling design. among the students of al-diwaniyah schools in the first semester of the 2023-2024 academic year, 250 were randomly selected using multi-stage cluster sampling, of which 194 completed the questionnaires. data were collected using the academic performance questionnaire (pham & taylor, 1990), the academic procrastination questionnaire (solomon & rothblum, 1984), the academic engagement questionnaire (fredricks et al., 2004), the psychological capital questionnaire (nguyen et al., 2012), and the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1965), and analyzed using spss version 26 and amos version 24.findings: the findings showed that there is a significant positive relationship between psychological capital and academic engagement with self-esteem and academic performance, and between self-esteem and academic performance (p < .01). additionally, academic procrastination has a significant negative relationship with self-esteem and academic performance (p < .01). furthermore, self-esteem partially mediates the relationship between psychological capital, academic engagement, and academic procrastination with academic performance.conclusion: based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that fostering self-esteem through the development of psychological capital and effective academic strategies can lead to improved academic performance.