Understanding academic engagement through psychosocial factors: Evidence from indonesian medical students

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Negeri Jakarta, Indonesia

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Abstract

This study aims to examine psychosocial factors, namely selfesteem, academic self-efficacy, and social support predict academic engagement among medical students in Indonesia. Academic engagement is widely recognized as a key indicator of academic success; however, studies that integrate psychological and social factors into a single predictive model remain limited, particularly within the context of Indonesian medical students. Employing a quantitative approach, this study employed convenience sampling and conducted hierarchical multiple regression analysis on data from 503 medical students enrolled in public and private universities across Indonesia. Three regression models were tested to assess the incremental contribution of each predictor and identify the most parsimonious rate and robust model. The final model, included self-esteem, academic self-efficacy, and social support, demonstrated significant effect with P-Value < 0.05. The highest explanatory power with a prediction rate of 62.1% of variance in academic engagement (R2 = .621). Among the predictors, social support emerged as the strongest predictor (β = .498), followed by academic self-efficacy (β = .292) and self-esteem (β = .097). These findings highlight the critical role of psychosocial resources in fostering academic engagement in medical students. These findings are expected to support the development of targeted interventions to prevent dropouts and enhance academic engagement.