The relationship between self-esteem and the effective learning: a case of study in primary school

Learning is an active process of the child and to be effective it must be based on a strong motivation to learn. The educational literature shows that the motivation to learn arises primarily from a good level of self-esteem. This chapter deals with the relationship between self-esteem and school learning. The aim is to investigate the relationship between the level of self-esteem and school performance. A group of pupils, attending the fifth class of Primary School, was put through TMA test (Italian version of the multidimensional self-esteem test of Bruce Bracken, 2003) to measure the level of self-esteem. Overall, the self-esteem that a pupil has about himself depends on the importance he attaches to each of the components that relate to different aspects of his life (personal relationships; family relationships; scholastic success; environment capability; sensibility; sense of self mobility). Through the Lisrel Model, the individual scores of the TMA test have been linked with the assessments of the school performances. The aim of the survey is to investigate the correlation between self-esteem and school performance. More specifically, to investigate whether pupils with low self-esteem have a poor school performance and instead a good self-esteem corresponds to a high level of school performance. Several different modeling strategies may be considered for the analysis of such data. In this chapter it is shown the LISREL Model with latent variables. It relies on structural equation models and provides a theoretical specification of the causal relationships among the observed variables. It is important that all teachers should be able to evaluate the level of self-esteem in pupils and to organize a correct program for the control of it. In fact who does not trust in itself and achieves a low school evaluation is not able to improve its performance; nevertheless who also has a high level of self-esteem must be guided to get over temporary difficulties. So this chapter also shows a simple technique that the teachers should use to increase self-esteem and interest to learning in pupils of Primary School.