Abstract

• The primary purpose of the present study is to investigate the impact of perceived social support on academic engagement of high school students in Pyinmana Township. Moreover, the present study is to examine the relationship between perceived social support and academic engagement in terms of gender, locality, subject combination, parents’ education level and parents’ job. Descriptive survey research method and quantitative data analysis were applied in this study. As the research instruments, Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS) developed by Malecki and Demaray, and Elliot (2000) and Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ) developed by Handelsman and colleagues (2005) were applied. A total of 900 high school students (450 males and 450 females) selected from six schools in Pyinmana Township participated in this study. After that, the data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, independent sample t test and ANOVA test. According to the descriptive statistics, the Grade 10 students from Pyinmana Township were good in perceived social support and academic engagement. The result of this study revealed that students were significantly different in perceived social support and academic engagement with respect to gender, subject combinations and mothers' education level. The students were not significantly different in perceived social support and academic engagement with respect to locality, fathers' education level and fathers' job and also mothers' job. The result revealed that there was positively significant relationship between perceived social support and academic engagement. Therefore, it could be interpreted that students who perceive greater social support will be better in academic engagement.