On the relationship between academic motivation and self-esteem in adolescents with oncological diseases when mastering natural science disciplines

Context and relevance. Long-term treatment of oncological diseases in adolescents is accompanied by a forced interruption of their educational trajectory, necessitating the creation of special psychological and pedagogical conditions in hospital schools. Learning motivation and self-esteem are considered key factors for successful mastery of the educational curriculum, particularly in natural science disciplines, which require high cognitive activity and resilience to academic difficulties. However, empirical data on the nature of the relationship between motivation and self-esteem in adolescents undergoing long-term treatment are insufficient, which limits the possibilities for targeted psychological and pedagogical support. Objective. To identify the presence and nature of the relationship between the level of learning motivation and self-esteem characteristics in adolescents with oncological diseases when mastering natural science disciplines in a hospital school setting. Hypothesis. There is a statistically significant relationship between the level of learning motivation and self-esteem characteristics in adolescents undergoing long-term treatment. It is assumed that a higher level of learning motivation is associated with more adequate and positive self-esteem, which together contributes to the effective mastery of natural science disciplines. Methods and materials. The study involved adolescents aged 14 to 17 years (N = 25) at the hospital school Hospital School “UchimZnaem / We Teach, we know” at the N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (M = 15,2, SD = 1,179, 36% male). Psychodiagnostic methods were used to assess self-esteem characteristics and learning motivation (the Dembo-Rubinstein technique, the T.D. Dubovitskaya method for diagnosing the direction of learning motivation, and the O.I. Motkov "Self-Esteem of Personality" questionnaire). Adolescents' academic performance in natural science disciplines was also recorded. Descriptive statistics, Friedman's χ² test, and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient were applied. Results. Differences between the six scales of the Dembo–Rubinstein method were statistically insignificant. The majority of adolescents demonstrated an average level of internal learning motivation. No statistically significant correlations were found between learning motivation and overall self-esteem (according to O.I. Motkov), nor with specific self-esteem subscales. A positive correlation was found between academic performance and overall self-esteem, and a negative correlation with the "Skillful Hands" subscale. Conclusions. The obtained data do not confirm the proposed hypothesis. In the examined small sample, learning motivation and self-esteem appear as relatively independent characteristics; the conclusions require verification on a larger and more homogeneous sample.

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