Exploring students’ feedback-seeking behavior: the roles of self-esteem, self-doubt, and achievement goals from a variable- and person-centered approach

Feedback-seeking behavior is a vital component of the broader feedback engagement process. However, its motivational underpinnings, particularly the roles of self-esteem, self-doubt, and achievement goals, remain underexplored. This study explored the effects of self-esteem and self-doubt on university students’ feedback-seeking behavior, as well as the mediating roles of achievement goals, with a sample of 1,232 undergraduates. To complement the variable-centered results, this study also identified profiles of students’ self-esteem, self-doubt, and achievement goals and examined the association between the identified profiles and feedback-seeking behavior. The results revealed that self-esteem positively predicted both monitoring and inquiry, whereas self-doubt was positively associated with monitoring but negatively associated with inquiry. Furthermore, mastery goals mediated the relationships between self-esteem and self-doubt with both monitoring and inquiry. In contrast, performance goals (approach and avoidance) only mediated the relationship between self-esteem, self-doubt, and inquiry. The person-centered approach further revealed that more than half of the participants showed low levels of self-esteem and mastery goals, combined with high levels of self-doubt. These results offer valuable insights into enhancing students’ feedback-seeking behavior and encouraging their proactive engagement with feedback.