Gender difference in the relationship between academic self‐efficacy, personal growth initiative, and engagement among Turkish undergraduates: A multigroup modeling

Abstract This study examines the mediating role of personal growth initiative in the relationship between academic self‐efficacy and engagement by examining gender differences. The novelty of this study lies in its focus on the mediating role of personal growth initiative and its examination of gender differences in the relationship between academic self‐efficacy and engagement. By examining if there are any differences in the links between the variables based on gender, this research gives important insight into how these factors influence academic life for different student groups. The data was collected from 607 (333 female and 274 male) full‐time undergraduate students. LISREL was used to test the structural model. We tested the hypotheses that academic self‐efficacy is positively associated with student engagement, personal growth initiative mediates the relationship between academic self‐efficacy and student engagement, and whether there is a gender difference in this mediation model. The findings show that personal growth initiative has a partial mediating role in the relationship between academic self‐efficacy and engagement. In addition, there is no difference between gender‐based groups, and the bootstrap analyses support these findings. Gender does not make a difference in the model because college students may evaluate higher education as increasing their future employment opportunities.