Social support, autonomy, academic commitment, and drop out intention in first year undergraduate students

Abstract

The primary objective of the present study was to assess the capacity of social support, autonomy support, and academic commitment for predicting undergraduate student drop out intention. A transversal explanatory design with latent variables was used. The participants were 3,121 students (women = 50.1%; men = 49.9%; average age = 19.2 years) studying at six Chilean universities. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used to estimate an explanatory model. The results indicate that both social support and autonomy support perceptions predicted student drop out intention when mediated by academic commitment. Social support, autonomy, and commitment explained 24% of drop out intention. It is concluded that the relationships between perceived social support, perceived support for autonomy, and academic commitment constitute an explicative model for drop out intention of first year Chilean undergraduates.