RELATIONSHIPS AND DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICITE INTELLIGENCE, PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND PERCEIVED ACADEMIC SELF-EFFICACY AMONG COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL STUDENTS

The purpose of this study was to explore relationships of implicit intelligence, perceived social support and perceived academic self-efficacy and to identify how these factors influence academic achievements amongst youth, as well as implement adaption of the revised implicit theories of intelligence (self-theory) scale (De Castell & Byrne, 2015) in Latvia. The research was based on implicit intelligence, perceived social support and academical self-efficacy theories. Nowadays, a growing amount of attention is focused on the reasons driving the academic achievements, self-belief and cumulates conversations about the importance of a social support. According to other scientists’ notes, there is a connection between implicit beliefs of intelligence, social support, academic self-efficacy, because all these constructively provide academic achievements. In several researches there are noted differences between boys and girls, therefore it was studied if there is a difference between sexes. 258 respondents participated in the research (N = 258) from two schools in Latvia between ages of 14-18, 134 of which were girls (n = 134) and remaining 124 - boys (n = 124), all completed three surveys - The revised implicit theories of intelligence (self-theory) scale (De Castell & Byrne, 2015); Children’s Perceived Self-Efficacy Scale (Bandura, 2006); Multidimensional scale of perceived social support /MSPSS/ (Zimet, G.D, Dahlem, N.W., Zimet, S.G., & Farley, G.K., 1988). Results showed that between academic achievements and development thinking, academical self-efficacy, perceived social support there is a statically important positive correlation, but negative – with common and fixed belief about the measures of intelligence. A positive connection was found between academic self-efficacy and academic achievements, as well as, from all the studied measures, academical self-efficacy forecasts academical achievements the best of all (3.6%). Differences amongst sexes were also noted. Results confirmed the expected correlation and matches other researches carried out before, which proves that the implicit intelligence, social support and academic self-efficacy are important for the learning achievements and researches on this topic should be carried out in the future, especially on implicit intelligence.