Causal modeling of antecedent and postpositional variables of Approaches to Study Skills for Students: Mediating analysis

The purpose of this article was to investigate the effect of important variables of antecedent and postpositional approach to study students. The proposed model was implemented on undergraduate students of three universities of Iran, Shahid Beheshti University , University of Tehran, University of Science and Technology. 692 undergraduate students from three universities were selected by relative stratified sampling. In order to collect data from Basic psychological Needs scales (BPN) by Deci & Ryan (2000), Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure) DREEM ( by Dundee (2000), Academically Motivation Questionnaire (AM) by Harter (1981), Approaches to Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) by Tait & Entwistle (1979), The Academic Success Inventory for College Student(ASICS) by Prevat et al .(2002), academic satisfaction of Turkzadeh and Mohtaram (2012) and Generic Skills Development (GSD) By Lizzio et al. (2002) have been used. The reliability of Cronbach's alpha of the instruments was obtained between 0.72 to0.93 and the construct validity of the instruments was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis. Findings showed that the proposed research model was able to explain about 32% of the surface approach to study, 6% of the variance of the deep approach to study and 26% of the variable variance of students' learning outcomes. The results showed that the basic psychological needs and academic environment encourage students to use more of a surface approach to study and less of deep approach to study. .