Perceived Social Support, Achievement Motivation and Academic Achievement of Rural Adolescents

The present study attempts to explicate empirically the relationships among the domains of Perceived social support and those of achievement motivation in relation to the level of education and sex of rural adolescents. This is an empirical investigation in psychology which involved 2 (level of education) × 2 (sex) factorial design. Accordingly, there were 120 (30 × 4 cells) rural adolescents in this study. They were administered two standardized scales named "Achievement Motivation Scale" and "Perceived Social Support Scale" to find out the role of sex, and level of education in promoting social support, achievement motivation and academic achievement. The findings of the study as reflected in the results highlighted certain interesting dimensions of the study. Most of the findings are similar to the hypotheses made in the study. However, some unusual findings have also been found in relation to interactional effect of level of education and sex on a domain of achievement motivation like motive to achieve through independence. Similar findings have also been yielded with respect to components of social support such as perceived moral support and perceived aggregate social support. With the above findings some socially useful suggestions have been recommended for future care of rural adolescents.