Social axioms and domain-specific perceived academic control: a study of Filipino students

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the general hypothesis that social axioms (social cynicism, social complexity, religiosity, reward for application, and fate control) have main and interacting effects on domain-specific perceived academic control. Social axioms that assume personal control over life outcomes were hypothesised to be positively associated with perceived academic control, whereas social axioms that assume less personal control over life outcomes will be negatively associated with perceived academic control. The sample included 376 Filipino university students who responded to a self-report questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis examined whether the five social axiom dimensions and their two-way interactions predicted perceived academic control in mathematics. Results revealed that social cynicism and fate control beliefs negatively influenced students’ perceived academic control. In contrast, reward for application and the interaction of fate control and religiosity beliefs positively influenced perceived academic control. Implications of the findings of the study are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Social axioms
• perceived academic control
• Filipino students

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the research assistant who provided assistance in the encoding of data for analysis.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicting interests.

Ethical standards

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on research involving human participants and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.

Financial support

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.