The Relationship of Spiritual Intelligence/Academic Conscience with Academic Performance: the Mediating Role of Academic Hardiness

Academic achievement is a behavioral consequence of great importance to students and is considered as an important indicator for evaluating educational systems and identifying the factors affecting it. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the relationship of spiritual intelligence and academic conscience with academic performance and to determine the mediating role of academic hardiness in ninth grade students in Zanjan, Iran.

The present study was a descriptive correlational study. The statistical population included all ninth grade male students in the second district of Zanjan in the academic year of 2018-2019. The sample size based on Morgan’s table was determined to be 317 people and the participants were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were collected using McIlroy and Banting Academic Conscience Questionnaire, Benishak et al.’s Spiritual Hardiness Questionnaire (SISRI) and King’s Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire Also, the total average of the students was used to assess academic performance. Pearson correlation test and stepwise regression test were used to analyze the data and Baron and Kenny method was used to determine the mediating role. In this study, all ethical considerations were observed and no conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

There was a significant and positive relationship between academic conscience and academic achievement (P<0.05). There was a positive and significant relationship between academic hardiness and students' academic achievement (P<0.05). The relationship between spiritual intelligence and academic achievement was also significant (P<0.05). Also, according to the stages of determining the mediating role of Baron and Kenny, academic hardiness played a mediating role in the relationship between academic conscience and academic achievement. But this role was not approved for Spiritual Intelligence. Overall, the results of multi-stage regression showed that educational conscience and spiritual intelligence can explain 15% of the variance in academic achievement.

Spiritual intelligence was one of the factors affecting students 'academic achievement and academic conscience, by affecting academic hardiness can lead to students' academic achievement.