Predictors of academic performance and school engagement - integrating persistence, motivation and study skills perspectives using person-centered and variable-centered approaches

There is a growing need for the integration of various theoretical perspectives on academic performance, especially the theories on educational persistence, and motivational theories. Recent models of students' engagement with school incorporate different dimensions of students, family and school. However, some authors are arguing that academic related skills should also be included in integrative approaches to academic achievement. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the predictors of academic performance a) integrating educational persistence, motivational, and study skills indicators, b) combining approaches centered on the variables and approaches centered on the person. 384 Portuguese secondary school students participated in this study. Information was collected about the several indicators from theories of persistence and motivation. The reduction of the data on principal components resulted in 9 factors. In the multiple regression model 5 factors explained 24.6% of the variance: socio economic status (9.3% of the variance), parental involvement with the school (6.4%), academic goals (4.9%), student-teacher interaction (leadership, rigor and orientation towards mastery in triennial courses) (2.6%), and academic related skills (1.1%). The profile analyses revealed that the two profiles with the best academic results register higher levels than the two profiles with worst academic results both in the indicators of the educational persistence model and the indicators of the motivational models. Different organizations of indicators from the educational persistence theories, the motivational models and study skills are associated to different academic results. These results give support for the integration of academic related skills, indicators of educational persistence theories and indicators of motivational models in secondary school students. Besides, this study's results give further evidences for the inclusion of academic related skills in multidimensional models of students' engagement with school.