Predicting Academic Performance and Academic Anxiety in Students with Learning Disabilities Based on Self-Compassion and Metacognitive Skills
Keywords:
Academic performance, academic anxiety, learning disorders, self-compassion, metacognitive skillsAbstract
Objective: The present study aimed to predict academic performance and academic anxiety in students with learning disabilities based on self-compassion and metacognitive skills.
Methods and Materials: This research employed an analytical and correlational design. The study population included female elementary school students in grades 1 through 5 from District 4 of Qom city during the 2023–2024 academic year who had been diagnosed with learning disabilities. Based on Morgan’s table, a sample size of 95 students was selected through simple random sampling. Data were collected using the Academic Performance Questionnaire (Pham & Taylor, 1999), the Academic Anxiety Scale (Allport & Haber, 1960), the Self-Compassion Scale (Reis et al., 2011), and the Metacognitive Skills Questionnaire (Shaterian Mohammadi, 2007). For inferential statistics, analyses included Pearson correlation, stepwise regression, and path analysis to assess the predictive capacity of independent variables.
Findings: The results indicated a significant relationship between academic performance and academic anxiety and the variables of metacognitive skills and self-compassion in students with learning disabilities. Academic performance was significantly predicted by metacognitive skills and self-compassion (p = 0.000), with 43% of the variance in academic performance being explained by these predictors. Beta coefficients revealed that metacognitive skills (β = 0.456) significantly predicted changes in academic performance with 99% confidence, and self-compassion (β = 0.412) also significantly predicted academic performance with 99% confidence. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between academic anxiety and both self-compassion and metacognitive skills. Academic anxiety in students with learning disabilities was significantly predicted by these two variables (p = 0.000), with 41% of the variance in academic anxiety explained. Beta values showed that self-compassion (β = 0.534) and metacognitive skills (β = 0.463) could predict academic anxiety at the 99% confidence level. These results reflect the strong predictive power of metacognitive skills on both academic performance and academic anxiety at the 0.01 error level. The indirect path analysis coefficients, based on beta and Z values, showed that learning disabilities negatively mediated the relationship between self-compassion and academic performance and anxiety. Additionally, learning disabilities positively mediated the relationship between metacognitive skills and academic performance and anxiety.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that self-compassion and metacognitive skills among students with learning disabilities independently affect their academic performance and academic anxiety.
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