The Interplay of Academic Self-Efficacy and Loneliness in Female Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Perceived Social Support and Self-Compassion

Feelings of loneliness, as an unpleasant psychological experience, have profound impacts on adolescents' mental health. The aim of the present study was to determine the mediating role of perceived social support and self-compassion in the relationship between academic self-efficacy and feelings of loneliness. The present study is applied in purpose and descriptive correlational in method (structural equation modeling). The statistical population included all female middle school students in Sirjan city in the 2023–2024 academic year, totaling 5,738 students, of whom 260 were selected as the sample. For data collection, the Russell et al. (1980) Loneliness Questionnaire, Zimet et al.'s (1988) Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Neff et al.'s (2003) Self-Compassion scale, and Morgan & Jinks's (1999) Academic Self-Efficacy scale were used. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were performed using SPSS-27, and to test the study hypotheses according to the statistical method, structural equation modeling was conducted using AMOS-22. The findings indicated that the total path coefficient between academic self-efficacy and feelings of loneliness (β = −0.584, p = 0.001) was negative and significant; likewise, the indirect path coefficient between academic self-efficacy and feelings of loneliness via perceived social support (β = −0.307, p = 0.001) and the indirect path coefficient between academic self-efficacy and feelings of loneliness via self-compassion (β = −0.167, p = 0.001) were also negative and significant. The results confirm the mediating role of perceived social support and self-compassion in th e relationship between academic self-efficacy and feelings of loneliness.