Which Types of Amotivation Affect School Absenteeism and Academic Performance of Middle School Students? A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

This study investigated the mediation role of school absenteeism in the relationships between different types of amotivation and academic performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the hypotheses of study. Participants were 311 eighth-grade middle school students who were absent from school for at least three days during the 2018–2019 spring semester. Data were collected from Academic Amotivation Inventory, which comprises four different types of amotivation. The significance of the indirect effects of amotivation types on academic performance was tested by using the bootstrapping method. Results demonstrated that each of four amotivation types were robust predictors of absenteeism. SEM analysis results showed that types of amotivation, including ability beliefs, effort beliefs, and value placed on task directly predicted students' academic performance. Bootstrap analysis revealed that each of those types had an indirect effect on academic performance via the partial mediation of absenteeism. However, task characteristics did not directly predict academic performance, and this relationship was mediated fully through absenteeism. Absenteeism acted as a mediator between amotivation types and academic performance. Findings provided preliminary evidence of negative effects of different types of amotivation that, when combined with absenteeism rates, may lead to high risk for students' academic performance.