Abstract
Objective:
Social support is an important research topic because of both its buffering effect against stress’s negative effect such as depression and loneliness, and its positive effect on achievement of adolescents. Social support is even more important for today’s youngsters who have limited educational opportunities. This study’s purpose was to determine the predictive value of family, friends and special person subscales of social support for motivation and achievement after controlling gender, parents’ education levels and number of siblings, and to test whether the predictive value of aforementioned variables changes based on the school type.
Method:
The subjects were 386 high school students attending to four different types of high schools. Subjects responded to Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the instrinsic motivation subscale of MSLQ and Personal Information Questionnaire.
Results:
The best predictors of the achievement were found to be type of the school, motivation, number of siblings and perception of family support (PFS). Motivation was predicted by previous year’s GPA, PFS and mother’s education level.
Discussion:
In light of the findings, the importance of the effects of social support on motivation and academic achievement was discussed.
Keywords: Social support, motivation, academic achievement, adolescents, high school
