Comparative study between higher and secondary education: Effects of perceived social support, self-concept and emotional repair on academic achievement

Abstract

Nowadays, the study of academic achievement is a subject of great interest in the field of education for its decisive role in the adjustment of students. Perceived social support, self-concept and emotional intelligence are potentially related and influential variables for academic performance. This study had two main aims: firstly, to explore the relationships between academic achievement and perceived social support, self-concept and emotional repair in higher education and secondary education; secondly, to analyze the predictive capacity of the cited contextual and individual variables on academic achievement. Convenience and random sampling was applied and the sample comprised 831 participants of higher education (50.1%; M = 20.45; SD = 3.30) and secondary education (49.9%; M = 15.57; DT = .72) from the autonomous community of the Basque Country, ofwhom 305 (36.7%) were men and 526 (63.3%) were women. The following instruments were administered: TCMS (teacher support subscale), AFA-R (family support and peer support subscales), TMMS24 (emotional repair subscale), AUDIM (general self-concept subscale) and EBAE-10 (academic achievement subscale). Correlational and multiple linear regression analyses are undertaken. The results confirm significantly positive relationships between perceived social support, self-concept and emotional reparation with academic achievement, as well as the predictive capacity of teacher support, self-concept and emotional repair on academic achievement. It is concluded that teacher support is the main predictor of academic performance among undergraduate students, followed by self-concept, while in secondary education self-concept is the variable with the greatest explanatory weight, followed by teacher support and emotional reparation. Therefore, good educational practices are proposed for teachers in both educational stages for the improvement of students’ perceived social support, self-concept, emotional repair and academic performance.