Students' perceived competence across academic and social-emotional domains: Unique roles in relation to autonomy-supportive teaching, academic engagement, and well-being

Researchers have long accepted the important role of perceived academic competence for students' outcomes. Recent work has started to examine the role of perceived social-emotional competence for these outcomes. The aim of our study was to jointly examine these two types of perceived competence assessed at the start of a school term, the role of perceived autonomy-supportive teaching in predicting them, and end-of-term academic engagement and well-being outcomes following from them (cognitive engagement, homework practices, school satisfaction, mental well-being). Among 373 secondary school students, results demonstrated that perceived autonomy-support was positively associated with both perceived competence factors. In turn, perceived academic competence uniquely predicted greater cognitive engagement, homework practices, and school satisfaction. Perceived social-emotional competence uniquely predicted greater cognitive engagement and mental wellbeing. Findings have the potential to guide practice around efforts to better support students' academic and social-emotional development. • We examined perceived academic competence and perceived social-emotional competence. • Perceived autonomy-support predicted both types of perceived competence. • The two perceived competence factors were uniquely linked with different outcomes. • Results show merit of considering academic and social-emotional factors together.