The role of basic psychological needs on academic performance with the mediation of resilience

A review of previous studies shows that one of the factors affecting the academic performance of students is the satisfaction of the three psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness). On the other hand, resilience as a protective behavior makes students face problems efficiently and achieve good academic results. Despite the role of basic psychological needs and resilience in predicting academic performance, there is a research gap regarding the mediating role of resilience in the effect of basic psychological needs on students' academic performance.

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of basic psychological needs on academic performance with the mediation of resilience.

The design of the present research was descriptive and correlational in the structural equation modeling method. The statistical population of the research included all the girl Students at the first period of high school in tehran in the academic year 2019-2020, and 340 people were selected as a sample by cluster random sampling. Data collection tools included Basic psychological needs (Guardia et al., 2000), academic performance (Pham & Taylor, 1999) and Conner-Davidson resilience (2003) resilience questionnaires. Data analysis was also done with Pearson correlation coefficient methods, structural equation modeling and using SPSS24 and AMOS24 software.

The results of the research showed that the direct effect of basic psychological needs on students' resilience (0.41) and academic performance (0.13) is significant, and the basic psychological needs on students' academic performance through resilience also has a significant indirect effect (P<0.05). In other words, resilience could play a mediating role between basic psychological needs on academic performance.

According to the findings of the present research, it is necessary for school managers, teachers and counselors to consider the necessary measures to increase students' resilience in order to satisfy basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and communication) and improve academic performance, so that they can use the special effects of resilience on the academic results of students.