Investigating the Mediating Role of Life Skills in the Relationship between Social Desirability and Students’ Academic Self-efficacy

Description

Aliasghar Sabeteghlidi¹ and Vali Nowzari² (Department of Educational Management, Arsanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arsanjan, Iran¹
and Department of Sport Sciences, Arsanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arsanjan, Iran²)

The aim of the present study is to investigate the mediating role of life skills in the relationship between social desirability and academic self-efficacy of high school students (Eqlid city). The present study is a descriptive and correlational study that was conducted on 300 high school students in Eqlid who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. The instruments used in this study were Marlow and Crown’s (1964), social desirability questionnaire, Genger and Morgan’s (1999), academic self-efficacy questionnaire, and Saatchi et al. (2010) life skills questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (including mean & standard deviation) and inferential statistics (including correlation, regression, & bootstrap tests), and using SPSS26 software. The research findings showed that the overall direct path coefficient of social desirability on academic self-efficacy was significant. Also, social desirability had a significant direct effect on life skills, and life skills also had a significant direct effect on academic self-efficacy. Finally, the specific direct effect of social desirability on the subjects’ academic self-efficacy with the mediation of life skills is significant in the modified and accelerated confidence interval (lower) 0.15 to (upper) 0.28. Therefore, the main hypothesis was confirmed and it can be said that life skills have a mediating role in the relationship between social desirability on the academic self-efficacy of second-year high school students in Shahreghlid.