Academic trajectories: The role of engagement as a mediator in the decision of university dropout or persistence

The study of university dropout has significantly advanced following the theoretical proposal of interactionist models. However, it becomes necessary to update these models based on the context and new variables that have gained relevance recently, such as the use of self-regulation strategies (SRL) or academic engagement. Therefore, the aim of this research is to analyze the extent to which academic engagement mediates the relationship between social integration, academic satisfaction, expectations, and the use of SRL. From a sample of 1177 university students ( M age = 19.26, SD = 2.97, 79.7% women), it was observed that academic engagement acts as a total mediator in the relationship between independent variables and the use of SRL in the models of the intention to drop the degree and university. However, for the models of intention to persist, partial mediation was observed in the effect of social integration and satisfaction, with total mediation only for expectations through the vigor component of engagement. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of university persistence. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Espan a, S.L.U. on behalf of Universidad de Pa & imath;<acute accent>s Vasco. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/).