The role of political trust and knowledge in prediction of students' interest to political participation

This research was conducted by the purpose of determining the role of students' political knowledge and trust in their interest in political participation at Mohaghegh Ardebili University. The statistical population of the study consisted of 400 undergraduate students in the academic year of 2014-2015. In order to collecting the data and determining the level of political knowledge, political trust, and political participation, a questionnaire was used and for analyzing the data correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were applied. The results of the correlation test indicated that there is a positive and significant correlation between the variables of political knowledge and trust with the level of students' interest in political participation (P <0.05). The results of regression analysis proved that, in total, independent variables of political knowledge and trust, explain 15% of the changes related to student political participation. The results also showed that political trust with a higher beta coefficient is a stronger predictor of student political participation. The findings of the present research are important implications for the necessity of the political system's attention to increase confidence building among citizens, especially young people and students.