Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement in English: A Relationship Study at Secondary School Level

This research was designed within the secondary school population to study self-esteem level of boys and girls and to find out its relationship with their academic achievement in English. The sample of this study was drawn from twenty-four public sector secondary schools of districts Khushab and city district Lahore. There were 1226 secondary school students (636 boys and 590 girls; 734 urban and 492 rural students) in the sample. Data were collected from students studying science (784 students) and humanities (442 students) subjects. To measure self-esteem of students, Urdu translation of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) was used. Annual results, declared by the BISE in Punjab, of grade 9 students were taken as academic achievement in English. Data were analyzed using inferential and descriptive statistics. The results showed that self-esteem was high in majority of the students. It was noticed that girls had higher level of self-esteem than boys. The students of urban locale had higher level of self-esteem than students of rural locale. It was also noticed that science students had a higher level of self-esteem than humanities students. Majority of the students had high grades in English. In the study, a positive and significant relationship was found between the variables i.e. self-esteem and academic achievement in English at secondary school level. The regression analysis shows that self-esteem is a significant positive predictor of academic achievement in English at secondary school level.