Socio-familial risk factors and personal protective variables of academic performance in Secondary Education students

Socio-familial risk factors negatively affect the academic performance of students. The objective of this study consisted in analyzing which personal variables can reduce the negative relationship between socio-familial risk factors and academic performance.

A sample of 1268 Secondary students was selected, of which 443 had two or more risk factors. The examined variables were the following: Socio-familial, academic goals, causal attributions, academic self-concept, self-efficacy and academic performance.

The incidence of accumulation of risk factors in the performance was confirmed. We distinguished at-risk students with good and poor performance from the personal variables analyzed, and showed the protective effect of these variables on performance against risk accumulation.

Based on the identification of risk factors that may hinder performance, the findings offer information to develop both educational intervention strategies that improve performance and personal variables that mediate positively in school outcomes.