Testing and designing a model of the causal relationship between academic competence & self-compassion with fear of academic failure through achievement goals

The present study examined the relationship between academic competence and self-compassion variables with fear of academic failure through goals of achievement. The statistical population of the study was male and female students of the second grade of high school in Ahvaz city. From this population, 300 people were selected by multistage random sampling. The present study is a descriptive-correlational type of path analysis. Research data were collected using the scales of academic competence, self-compassion, fear of academic failure, and goals of achievement. The results showed that after eliminating some of the non-significant direct relationships between the research variables, the fit of the proposed model was confirmed. The results indicate that there is a negative correlation between self-compassion and academic competence with fear of academic failure, there is a negative correlation between self-compassion with performance and avoidance goals, and there is positive correlation between self-compassion with mastery, and there is a positive between avoidance orientation with fear of academic failure, and there is negative correlation between mastery and performance goals. The results also showed that the indirect relationships of variable academic competence with achievement goals through fear of academic failure were non-meaningful, but the indirect relationship between self-compassion and fear of academic failure through these goals were significant. The results of this study suggest that in order to reduce the fear of academic failure in students, it is appropriate to reinforce the concept of academic competence and self-compassion in students.