Modeling the Correlations between Students’ Sense of Coherence, Self-Compassion and Academic Performance: The Mediating Role of Personal Intelligence

Introduction: Personality factors in academic settings which are highly intensive in terms of academic pressure may increase or decrease students’ adaptability and affect their academic performance. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to propose a predictive model of academic performance based on sense of coherence, self-compassion and personal intelligence. Methods: This correlational study was performed in 2014-15 academic year on a sample of 260 medical students of Bonab and Maragheh’s universities who were selected by multistage cluster sampling. Antonovsky’s sense of coherence questionnaire, Neff’s self-compassion scale, and Mayer’s personal intelligence questionnaire were used for data collection. Data were analyzed by means of Pearson correlation coefficient, Bootstrap and Sobel test. Results: The direct effects of controllability (0.113), meaningfulness (0.116), self-compassion (0.196), forming the model (0.161), and selection guide (0.299) on students’ academic performance were significant (P<0.01). But the direct effect of the subscale comprehensibility was not significant. The indirect effects of meaningfulness (t=3.232) and self-compassion (t=1.60) with the mediating role of the subscale forming the models of personal intelligence, and the indirect effects of controllability (t=2.090), meaningfulness (t=1.65) and self-compassion (t=1.777) with the mediating role of the subscale selection guide of personal intelligence were significant, but the indirect effect of comprehensibility was not. In total, 38% of the variance of academic performance was explained by the variables of the proposed model. Conclusion: Given the direct and indirect effect of sense of coherence, self-compassion and personal intelligence on the academic performance, it seems that reinforcement of personal intelligence, sense of coherence and self-compassion may enhance students’ academic performance.