How Student Engagement Shapes Perceived Academic Achievement: Distinct Competence- and Well-Being-Based Pathways

Student engagement is widely recognized as a key determinant of academic success; however, its underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Existing measures frequently conflate engagement in learning activities (SELA) with engagement in the academic community (SEAC), which obscures their distinct contributions to students’ perceived academic achievement (PAA). To address these limitations, the present study proposes and empirically tests a theoretically grounded dual-pathway model based on the Dual Component Framework of Student Engagement. This framework differentiates between competence-based and well-being-based mechanisms that link engagement to PAA. Specifically, SELA is hypothesized to influence PAA through perceived competence, whereas SEAC is expected to operate through life satisfaction. Additionally, gender and academic year are examined as potential moderators of these indirect relationships. Two studies were conducted with university students from different academic programs and year levels (Study 1: N = 404; Study 2: N = 396). The findings indicate that perceived competence fully mediates the relationship between SELA and PAA. Life satisfaction also fully mediates the effect of SEAC on PAA, even after controlling for gender and academic year. Neither SELA nor SEAC exhibited direct effects on academic achievement, emphasizing the central role of psychological mediators. Furthermore, gender and academic year did not moderate these relationships. Collectively, these findings provide strong evidence for distinct psychological pathways linking specific forms of engagement to academic self-evaluations and highlight the need for mechanism-based models of student engagement in higher education.