Aplicação do modelo de ação racional sobre a intenção de desistir de estudar

Abstract

The authors of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) postulare that the intention is the variable most directely associated with a behavior, otherwise it can be determined by the subject's attitude related to the behavior in question and by the subjective norm, the social behavior component. The aim of this study was to use the author 's Theory to verify its consistency on the prediction of study abandonment intention. The sample were 43 students of both sex, attending the 5th grade of a public scholl. A measure instrument was used to evaluate: Intention (1); Attitude (A); Subjective Norm (N.S); Behavior Belief (C.C); Belief Evaluation (A; C); Normative Belief (C.N); and Motivation to agree with referents (M). The data showed that four among six simple correlations were significant: between Intention x Attitude, Attitude x Belief Evaluation; Subjective Norm x Normative Belief and Subjective Norm x Motivation to agree with referents. Concerning the results on the multiple regression analysis it was observed that only the attitude variable was significant to predict intention. In addition, related to the attitude variable there was significancy only with the belief evaluation and finally related to the subjective norm variable there were significant results relating to the magnitude of motivation toward agreement. Considering that the behavioral intention under investigation is associated to the behavior that represents the interruption of the study act, the results of this study may open new frontiers to researches about the applicability of the Theory of Reasoned Action to brazilian context.