A mediating effect of self-esteem in a relationship between longitudinal analysis of elementary students’ reading books and learning attitude of 6th grade

Objectives This paper examines longitudinal changes in the amount of reading of elementary students and the relationship between the longitudinal changes and learning attitudes of 6th-grade elementary students. Moreover, it analyses the mediating effect of self-esteem in the relationship between the variables. Methods The data is from the 9th year of 2016 to the 13th year of 2020 provided by the Panel Study on Korean Children(PSKC). A total of 972 students were studied, excluding cases in which children did not respond to the total amount of reading per week reading from the 9th to the 13th year in PSKC. It investigates whether the total amount of reading per week from the 2nd to 6th grade of elementary school changed linearly through the Latent Growth Model and the Unconditional Latent Growth Model. Then it conducts the Structural Equation Model to confirm the relationship between the amount of weekly reading from the 2nd to 6th grade and the learning attitude of the 6th grade, and whether self-esteem of the 6th grade mediates the relationship between the variables. Results First of all, the total amount of reading per week for an elementary student from the 2nd to the 6th grade gradually decreased as his/her age increased. Secondarily, the initial total amount of reading per week and the changes from 2nd-grade to 6th-grade elementary school of total amount of reading per week directly affected the 6th-grade students’ learning attitude. In addition, self-esteem in the 6th grade of elementary school indirectly mediates on the relationship between the total amount of reading per week and learning attitude. Conclusions As a result, the research reveals that reading can have a positive effect on the learning attitude of elementary students. Whether students read many books at an early age in elementary school, students’ learning attitudes get more positive although the amount of reading decreases as they get older. Furthermore, it discloses school-aged children’s self-esteem partially mediated the relationship between children’s reading and learning attitudes.