Modeling the Structural Relationships of Cognitive Abilities with Academic Achievement by Mediating the Role of Perceived Competence in High School Students

The purpose of this research was modeling the structural relationships of cognitive abilities with academic achievement through mediation of the role of perceived competence in high school students. The method was descriptive, correlational type based on the structural equations. The statistical population consisted all 1361 male state school students of junior high, ninth grade of Babol in the academic year of 400-401. To choose the sample size based on the number of observed variables and allocating a coefficient of 15 to each observed variable (16 in the model), and taking the possibility of incomplete questionnaires into account, 250 people were taken as the sample size by two-step-clustering method. In order to collect the data, the educational achievement questionnaires by Pham and Taylor, cognitive abilities by Nejati, perceived competence by Harter, were used. The construct validity of the instruments was confirmed and their reliability was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient test and composite reliability, which was statistically confirmed. In order to analyze the data, structural regression equations were used in SPSS-25 and AMOS-23 software. The findings showed that there is a relationship between cognitive abilities and academic progress in junior high school students. Also, cognitive abilities have a significant effect on academic achievement through the mediation of perceived competence in junior high school students. Generally, cognitive abilities can predict .46 of academic progress through the mediation of perceived competence in high school students