A study on the relationship between social support systems and achievement motivation of higher secondary school students

The study aimed to examine the relationship between social support systems and achievement motivation among higher secondary school students. A total of 240 adolescents (120 boys and 120 girls) were selected as sample from 12 government high schools located under six zones in Hyderabad city of Telangana state through a purposive random sampling method. The data was collected using a social support system questionnaire developed by Indira Dhull and Sangeeta Godara (2004) assesses the secondary school students’ level of social support from family, teacher, peer/friend, and online support. The achievement motivation scale developed by Beena Shah (1986) assesses the need for academic success, need for vocational achievement, need for social achievement and need for skill achievement. After conducting a correlational analysis using Karl Pearson’s product-moment correlation between social support system and achievement motivation, a highly significant and strong positive correlation (r = 0.948**) was observed, which was found to be significant at 0.01 level of probability. It implies that higher levels of social support were associated with increased achievement motivation among higher secondary school students. Surprisingly, our findings suggests that a well-balanced support network consisting of family, teachers, and peers plays a crucial role in helping students set academic goals, overcome challenges, and remain motivated to achieve success and it is consistent with our findings across research.