Investigating the Mediating Role of Competence Perception in the Relationship between Teacher Support Perception and Students' Academic Demotivation

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of competence perception in the relationship between the perception of teachers' support and academic demotivation of adolescent students. The research method was descriptive-correlation with structural equation modeling method. The statistical population included all adolescent students of the second year of high school in city Yazd, who were studying in the academic year 2020-2021. Among them, 421 of them were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. The measurement tools included Harter's (1981) academic motivation questionnaires, textual teacher support perception, McWhirter and O'Neill (2008) and Harter's self-perception (1989). Structural equation modeling (SEM) and SPSS-21, LISREL-8.72 software were used for statistical analysis. Pearson's correlation results showed that there is a significant correlation between academic apathy and the perception of teachers' support and the perception of competence (p<0.05). Also, the results of the path analysis indicated that the perception of teachers' support is related to academic demotivation through the perception of competence. Based on the findings of the research, the perception of competence and the perception of teachers' support have an effective role in reducing academic demotivation in students.