A Study of Relationship between Perceived Social Support and School Value with Academic Buoyancy; The role Mediatory of Schoolwork Engagement

Low scores, difficult lessons, rigid incompetent teachers, as well as bleak and unfriendly classroom atmosphere, are among the challenges facing a teenager (Spear, 2000). To deal with these challenges, researchers have recently focused on the abilities and potentials of the teenagers, one of which is academic buoyancy. Within the confines of positive psychology, academic buoyancy is defined as the individual’s active resilience to the various challenges, pressures, and impediments they might commonly face in academic contexts (Martin & Marsh, 2009; Putwain, Connors, Symes & Douglas-Osborn, 2012). Various motivational antecedents have been identified for academic buoyancy that can be classified into three main categories: psychological, school and engagement, and family-and-peer factors (Martin & Marsh, 2008). Psychological factors include such factors as self-efficacy beliefs, control, resoluteness, and motivation. The school and engagement factors concern the influence of class participation, interaction with teachers, school values, and extra-curriculum activities, that have been of concern to several researchers (e.g. …). At the family-and-peers level, family support, interaction with socially approved people and friends, as well as the presence of authoritative and caring parents are among the consequential variables (…). The current investigation, following Martin and Marsh (2008), focuses at the psychological level on schoolwork interaction, at the school-and-engagement level, on school values, and at the family-and-peers level, on social support from the family and significant others. These variables were selected for their presumed significance in encouraging learners to try to reach success and to create optimal educational environments.
Schoolwork engagement is defined as the positive concentrated state of the mind, characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (Salmela-Aro & Upadyaya, 2012). Given that engagement involves control and concentration of mind, and control is a psychological factor, schoolwork engagement is categorized as a psychological variable. Research suggests that learners actively engaging in schoolwork demonstrate high levels of resilience in studying and in encountering various educational challenges. Moreover, such students are eager to learn, dedicate themselves to education and thus have a meaningful and successful educational life. In sum, students with high levels of schoolwork engagement, through their constant interaction with school, acquire the skills necessary for their success in education and can hereby create the desirable educational context (…).
On the other hand, with respect to schooling value, or the students’ perception of the meaningfulness of schooling in general (Mucherah, 2008), Niemivirta (2004) demonstrates that learners who set high values on schooling incline toward self-promotion and improvement and far from any sense of dissatisfaction, demonstrate more constructive behaviors in their education in that what matters to these students is learning per se (e.g. Meece & Holt, 1993).
As another motivational antecedent of academic buoyancy, social support refers to the type of assistance, which individuals receive or expect to receive from those whom come into contact with in any way (Papakonstantinou & Papadopoulos, 2010). There is ample evidence demonstrating the significance of social support in promoting compatibility, competence, and success.
Besides the significance of these variables in promoting academic buoyancy, the literature supports the existence of a cause and effect relationship between them. In this regard, several studies suggest that perceived social support enhances the students’ academic buoyancy by increasing their schoolwork engagement and fostering their self-efficacy beliefs (e.g. Cheung & Sun, 2000). Research further suggests that belief in schooling value contributes to academic buoyancy and success by motivating learners to more actively engage in their schoolwork (…). Thereupon, the purpose of the current investigation is to verify the hypothesis that ‘schoolwork engagement mediates the relationship between schooling value and academic buoyancy’. In other words, the study aims to explore how perceived social support and school value affect academic buoyancy, taking schoolwork engagement as a mediating variable.
Research questions
The present study aims to explore the mediatory role of schoolwork engagement in the relationship between schooling value and academic buoyancy. Therefore, the present study attempts to answer the following questions:- Is it possible to predict student's academic buoyancy based on social support and school value?
- Is it possible to predict student's schoolwork engagement according to social support and school value?
- Can schoolwork engagement have mediate the relationship between social support and school value?
This is a non-experimental research with correlational design.
Participants and procedure
The statistical population in the study included all the male and female students studying in grade two of a high school in Islamshahar county. Of this population, a sample of 385 students (187 females and 171 males) was selected randomly using cluster sampling technique. The clustering was made according to the students’ school, major, and class. The instruments employed to collect data included perceived social support scale (SSS; Vaux, Philips, Holly, Thomson, Williams & Stewart, 1986), school value questionnaire (SVS; Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro & Niemivirta, 2012), schoolwork engagement questionnaire (SEQ; Salmela-Aro & Upadyaya, 2012) and academic buoyancy questionnaire (ABQ; Dehghanizadeh & Hoseinchari, 1391). All the three tools enjoyed appropriate levels of validity and reliability.
Analysis of the information using path analysis (PA) showed that the social support and school value directly predict academic buoyancy. Moreover, schoolwork engagement was found both to have a direct effect on academic buoyancy and to play a mediatory role between, social support and school value in affecting academic buoyancy.
The findings of the study emphasize the direct and indirect effects of social support and school value on the student's academic buoyancy. Not only does schoolwork engagement have a direct effect on academic buoyancy, but it also acts as a mediatory variable between social support and school value in affecting academic buoyancy. Social support and school value both cause and increase schoolwork engagement and thereby enhance the students’ confidence to overcome challenges and this correspondingly contributes to their success and enhanced academic buoyancy. The role of schoolwork engagement, on the other hand, in predicting academic buoyancy and success could be explained taking into account that students who actively engage in their schoolwork devote high levels of energy and attention to the tasks they perform and remain patient in the face of challenges until they reach success.