Perceived Social Support as an Antecedent of Academic Achievement among form two Students in Gaborone City, Botswana

Academic achievement which is reflected in knowledge mastery, and Skill development has been a major concern for academicians and policy makers. Further, there have been scanty studies on this area in Gaborone City, Botswana linking psychological variables to poor academic achievement. It is against this that the current study investigated the relative predictive weight of perceived social support and student academic engagement on academic achievement. This study was founded on Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory and Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. A correlational research design was employed. The target population of the study was 3713 form two students spread across the 8 secondary schools in the Gaborone City Botswana. Purposive sampling, stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the study sample size of 397 respondents. The study used an adapted Multidimensional scale for perceived social support, an adapted cognitive engagement inventory and end-of-term-two examination results as tools for data collection. Prior to data collection, pilot testing was among 50 randomly selected students and involved both reliability and validity testing. The analysis was conducted using the SPSS software Version 26 where descriptive statistics, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, multiple regression were used. The prediction model of academic achievement from social support and academic engagement was statistically significant, F (2,381) = 11.17, p < .001, with the two variables accounting for 11% of the change in academic achievement. Of the two, perceived social support (β = 0.24, p < 001) was a better predictor of academic achievement as compared to academic engagement (β = 0.15, p < .05). The findings of this study may have significance for learners, parents and teachers in addressing poor academic achievement. Keywords: Perceived Social Support, Academic Engagement, Academic Achievement, Form Two Students, Gaborone City, Botswana