The Relationships between Children’s Ego Function and Fear of Negative Evaluation Affecting Academic Failure Tolerance in Early School Age: Analysis by Grade Level Considering Sustainability of Academic Motivation

Seyoung Kim and Naya Choi
Additional contact information
Seyoung Kim: Department of Christian Counseling, Baekseok University, Munam-ro 76, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do 31065, Korea
Naya Choi: Department of Child Development and Family Studies, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-12

Abstract: This study identified the relational paths between children’s ego function and fear of negative evaluation affecting academic failure tolerance across three grades. The ego function consisted of four factors: competence, initiative, resilience, and sociality. In total, data of 872 elementary school students (Grade 1–3) in South Korea were collected through parent-reported questionnaires. Results reflected various paths between these variables. Firstly, in all three grades, greater initiative and resilience and less fear of negative evaluation resulted in higher tolerance for academic failure. In particular, fear of negative evaluation was found to fully mediate the effect of academic failure tolerance on resilience. Secondly, notable differences in paths were found among grade levels. For first grade students, competence lowered the fear of negative evaluation and academic failure tolerance. For second grade students, initiative had an indirect effect on academic failure tolerance through fear of negative evaluation. For third grade students, sociality lowered the fear of negative assessment and increased academic failure tolerance. Fear of negative evaluation partially mediated the relationship between first graders’ competence, second graders’ initiative, and third graders’ sociality and academic failure tolerance. Conclusively, children’s ego function is an important factor affecting academic failure tolerance, and the fear of negative evaluation mediates the relationship between the two variables. The four factors of ego have been found to have a different impact on each grade level. In consideration of effectiveness and sustainability, viable methods of psychological intervention to improve children’s academic motivation, specifically created to meet the needs of children at each grade level, are necessary. This study is meaningful in that it provides applicable results for sustainability-based psychological interventions to improve children’s academic failure tolerance.

Keywords: academic failure tolerance; ego function; fear of negative evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1888/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1888/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1888-:d:327342

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().