Explaining of academic engagement based on Perceived social support during the transition into high school with mediating role of perceived self-Worth and subjective well-being and moderating role of gender and socioeconomic-status

This study emphasizes the importance of targeting three social factors: parents, teachers and peers in multilevel interventions with the aim of optimizing academic engagement, subjective well-being and students' perception of self-worth during the transition to high school. Based on the self-system model of motivational development, effects of perceived social support of three social factors (parents, teachers, and peers) on dimensions of academic engagement with the mediating role of Subjective well-being and self-worth were examined. the role of gender moderation and socio-economic status were also measured.

This study focused on 578 students (307 girls and 271 boys) who studied in the first year of Tehran’s high schools which were selected by available sampling method. Song et al’s perception of social support scale (2015), Reeve’s academic engagement scale (2013), Rosenberg’s self-worth scale (1985) and Diner’s subjective well-being scale (1984) were used to gather the data for analysis using structural equation modeling.

  Results showed that perception of support by all three social factors (parents, teachers, and peers) positively predicts students' perception of self-worth, subjective well-being and academic engagement. Also, it was determined by examining the theoretical model that the indirect and significant effect of perception of social support on academic engagement is mediated by both variables of subjective well-being and self-worth. The results of hierarchical regression indicated the role of gender moderation and the lack of significance of this role for socio-economic status.