An Exploration of Causal Relationships Between Behavioural/Emotional Difficulties and Academic Achievement: A Path Model Approach

As the debate on whether uni-directional and/or bi-directional relationships exists between behavioural/emotional difficulties of school-aged learners, this study employed the path modelling approach to explore if there was a causal direction between behavioural/emotional difficulties (i.e. attention, aggressiveness, depression) and academic achievement (i.e. Korean language arts, mathematics), or vice versa over time using two time points. The final sample contained 1,735 students who attended high schools during 2014-2015 school year. Path modelling estimates showed that (a) behavioural/emotional difficulties caused difficulties in mathematics in a year; (b) difficulties in both Korean language arts and mathematics caused aggressiveness and depression; and (c) there was a bidirectional relation between aggressiveness and depression and mathematics performance. Further, there was a gender difference in reacting to their experiences in behavioural/emotional difficulties and academic difficulties. Overall, findings from the current study provide a significant contribution to the existing literature on the causal relation between behavioural/emotional difficulties and academic achievement, as well as supporting the gender difference in terms of the direction of this relation. Finally, practical implications and future directions for research were discussed.