The relationship between perceived social support and cognitive engagement with mediation of self-efficacy

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationship between perceived social support and deep and surface cognitive engagement with mediating of self-efficacy among Yazd university students. This research design was a correlational and the statistical population was all undergraduate students of Yazd University (with 9551 students) that 386 were selected by stratified random sampling. Participants completed questionnaires of the revised two-factor version of the learning process (Kember et al., 2004), self-efficacy (Sherer et al., 1982), and multidimensional scale of perceived social support (Zimet et al., 1988). Data were analyzed by multiple regression method and path analysis, using SPSS & AMOS softwares. The final model of research fitted well to the data. The results showed perceived social support through self-efficacy had positive relationship with deep cognitive engagement and negative relationship with surface engagement significantly, also the direct paths between perceived social support and both kind of cognitive engagement were not significant. The results indicated the important role of self-efficacy in student's deep cognitive engagement.