The effect of social support and conflict on academic performance of foundation year university students

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of the psychometric constructs of social support and conflict on students’ academic performance in the foundation programme of the Bachelor of Commerce degree at a South African university. The foundation programme is an extended curriculum providing access to students from poorly resourced schools, quintiles 1–3. The research design was quantitative. Data were collected from 151 Bachelor of Commerce students in their foundation year at a South African university. Data were gathered using a closed-ended questionnaire, which included elements adopted from the Interpersonal Relationship Inventory developed by Tilden, Nelson, and May, and through document analysis. The data were analysed using spreadsheet formulas and a two-way ANOVA in SPSS version 25. The results suggest there was insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis that social support and conflict have no significant effect on student performance in Academic Literacy, Economics, and Mathematics. The findings also reveal no interaction effect between the independent variable Social Support Rank and the independent variable Conflict Rank. Further analysis of the estimated marginal means of student academic performance shows that performance is most similar across all conflict groups when social support is present (medium or high social support). This finding aligns with social exchange theory, which seeks to predict interaction behaviour. The findings suggest that successful foundation programme implementation should consider the effect of social support on student performance, especially when conflict is present, and incorporate interventions that provide student support. It should be noted that, due to the exploratory nature of this study, the general applicability of the findings has not been tested. This study contributes to research aimed at understanding the successful implementation of university foundation programmes