Perceived Social Support and Early Adolescents’ Ac

Authors: Wondimu Ahmed Alexander Minnaert Greetje van der Werf Hans Kuyper

Publish Date: 2008/11/20

Volume: 39, Issue: 1, Pages: 36-

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Abstract

Although a bulk of literature shows that perceived social support PSS influences academic achievement the mechanisms through which this effect operates received little empirical attention The present study examined the multiple mediational effects of motivational beliefs competence beliefs and subjective value and emotions anxiety and enjoyment that may account for the empirical link between PSS from parents peers and teachers and mathematics achievement The participants of the study were 238 grade 7 students average age = 132 years girls = 54 predominantly native Dutch middle class socioeconomic status A bootstrap analysis a relatively new technique for testing multiple mediation revealed that the motivational beliefs and the emotions jointly partially mediated the effect of PSS on achievement The proportion of the effects mediated however varied across the support sources from 55 to 75 The findings lend support to the theoretical assumptions in the literature that supportive social relationships influence achievement through motivational and affective pathwaysHow does perceived social support affect early adolescents’ academic achievement A substantial body of literature shows that early adolescents’ perceived social support PSS is associated with their academic achievement In general studies show that early adolescents who perceive their parents peers and/or teachers as supportive fare better in school than those who do not perceive their socializers as such eg Goodenow 1993 Levitt et al 1994 Wentzel 1998 Despite the growing body of evidence on the associations between the perception of supportive social relationships and academic achievement the mechanisms through which social support exerts its influence on achievement have seldom been examined A growing body of literature suggests that supportive social relationships may influence academic achievement indirectly through motivational and affective mechanisms eg Dubow et al 1991 Eccles 2007 Roeser et al 2000 Wentzel 1998 Taken together the emerging literature suggests that the presence of social support or lack thereof may precipitate positive or negative affective experiences eg enjoyment anxiety anger as well as adaptive or maladaptive self and task related motivational beliefs eg selfcompetence beliefs subjective value which in turn influence achievement Although understanding such mechanisms of influence is important as it will inform further research and policy initiatives and may lead to the development of effective intervention programs to enhance early adolescents’ achievement empirical evidence on the subject is lackingThe purpose of the present study was to examine the motivational and affective pathways through which social support may influence the achievement of early adolescents In particular we examined how early adolescents’ competence beliefs in math and their subjective value of math as well as their level of math anxiety and math enjoyment mediate the association between perceived social support and math achievement We chose early adolescence because it is a period characterized by confluence of biological psychological and social challenges Lord et al 1994 Particularly it is described as a period of decline in academic motivation eg interest value competence beliefs and increased negative emotions eg anxiety anger eg Roeser et al 1998 2000 With respect to social support it is a period when youth perceive their parents and teachers as less supportive whereas their perception of peer support peaks to the maximum Furman and Buhrmester 1992 Thus early adolescence is an ideal period to study the effect of PSS on achievement with particular emphasis on affective and motivational mechanisms which happen to be in fluxAs alluded to earlier previous studies have found relatively consistent evidence for the link between perceived social support and academic achievement For instance Rosenfeld et al 2000 found that students with high support from peers parents and teachers had better grades in a large representative sample of middle and high school students than those without such support A comparable study by Dubow et al 1991 among students of lower middle class status of various ethnic groups showed similar findings Their prospective study revealed that students’ report of aggregated social support from family peers and teachers predicted their achievement 2 years later This longitudinal study lends support to the importance of theoretically speculated causal associations between social support and achievement Another study by Levitt et al 1994 revealed similar findings In a sample of multiethnic African European and Hispanic Americans early adolescents of mixed socioeconomic status the researchers found that the students’ perception of supportive relationships with parents friends and teachers predicted their achievement as measured by average GPA in math social sciences and English Another important finding of this study is that when the level and effect of social support was examined neither the level of support nor its effect on achievement differed by ethnicity Lastly Wentzel 1998 in a study of white middle class early adolescents found that students’ perception of support was correlated significantly with their cumulative GPA in math English science and social studies The consistent findings across diverse samples suggest that social support is important for adolescents regardless of their socioeconomic status or ethnicityIn spite of the extensive literature linking social support to achievement little is known about the underlying mechanisms that can explain these relations An overview of the growing body of literature on this aspect suggests that adolescents’ perceived social support may contribute to their achievement indirectly by way of motivational and affective outcomes In particular studies render compelling evidence on the associations between supportive social relationships and several motivational and emotional variables which in turn are related to achievement In what follows we briefly discuss empirical evidence and theoretical explanations on social support and its association with motivational and emotional variablesSupportive social relationships have been linked to adaptive motivational beliefs including but not limited to goal orientations academic values academic efficacy and interest eg Felner et al 1985 Harter 1993 Wentzel 1998 Of particular interest to the current investigation are those studies that dealt with the associations between social support and competence beliefs as well as subjective values Competence beliefs refer to students’ perceptions of how good they are at performing a given activity Subjective values refer to students’ evaluations of the importance interestingness and usefulness of a task Wigfield and Eccles 2000 Research has documented noteworthy relations between students’ perceptions of social support from parents teachers and/or peers and competence and value beliefs Perceived parental support has been related positively to perceived competence and interest in school a construct akin to value eg Felner et al 1985 Wentzel 1998 Similarly perceived support from peers has been associated with intrinsic value and selfconcept Covington and Dray 2002 Harter 1993 Wentzel 1994 Finally perceived support from teachers has been related to student reports of intrinsic values and selfconcept Covington and Dray 2002 Harter 1996 Midgley et al 1989 In general the studies support the assumption that familial teacher and peer relationships influence students’ motivational beliefs eg Eccles 2007 Thus the literature suggests that the simple perception that a social network is supportive can have the potential to boost ones selfconfidence and to help internalize valued goals There is also a relatively adequate amount of theoretical and empirical evidence that the perception of supportive relationships can influence students’ affective experiencesSocial psychological literature shows that the presence of supportive social relationships or lack thereof is associated with affective experiences Individuals who have supportive social relationships experience more enjoyment and lesser anxiety than those who do not Baumeister and Leary 1995 At a more general level these authors argue that whereas individuals who are provided with close supportive interpersonal relationships experience enjoyment those who are deprived of such relationships tend to experience anxiety Several motivation researchers eg Roeser et al 2000 Connell and Wellborn 1991 also argued that supportive and caring relationships within schools and homes in general would lead to the experience of positive emotions In contrast according to these authors withdrawal of such relationships would lead to the experience of negative emotionsAlbeit limited studies of the relationship between students’ PSS and emotions in academic settings support the theoretical assumptions For instance Wentzel 1998 reported significant negative correlations between social support peer support teacher support and family cohesion and psychological distress anxiety depression low selfesteem and low wellbeing Other studies that sought to determine the relations between perceived teacher support and affective outcomes of schooling found that teacher support correlates positively with enjoyment and negatively with anxiety Fraser and Fisher 1982 Ma and Kishor 1997 Midgley et al 1989 In addition studies have found significant associations between a sense of acceptance analogous to social support and the enjoyment of learning Battistich et al 1995 Thus the findings suggest that perceived social support covaries with emotions

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