Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 30, 2025

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
The role of social support in school adjustment during Secondary Education
Oihane Fernández Lasarte1, Estibaliz Ramos Díaz, Eider Goñi Palacios
1Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU).
Background:
During secondary education, a stage with a high risk of failure and school dropout, social support is an important contextual variable for the prevention of school maladjustment. The aim of this study is to examine a theoretical model of the explanatory capacity of social support in terms of school adjustment, understood as school engagement and perceived academic performance.
Method:
Participants were 1,468 students (51% girls; 49% boys) from the Basque Country, aged between 12 and 17 (M=14.03, SD=1.36). The study had an ex post facto cross-sectional design. The measurement instruments used were: TCMS -teacher support subscale, AFA-R -family support and peer support subscales, SEM -School Engagement Measure, and EBAE-10 - perceived academic performance subscale. Various different structural models were tested.
Results:
The first-choice model was one in which social support predicts school engagement with perceived academic performance as a mediating variable: together, both variables predict 73% of school engagement. The strongest effect was that of teacher support, followed by family support, whereas friends were not found to have any direct effect on school adjustment variables.
Conclusions:
Teachers and families should strive to offer social support to students as a means of strengthening perceived academic self-efficacy and school engagement.
Related Concept Videos
Stress Prevention and Stress Management Techniques V
Relationship with Other Adult Family Members and Siblings
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification
Sources of Self-Esteem III: Social Comparison
Attachment Styles

