Poster #173 - Association of Kin Social Support with College Adjustment among African American Students

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Educational outcomes including college adjustment and graduation rates of ethnic minority students increase in importance as the U.S. moves toward greater ethnic diversity. Recent work has shown that maintaining family ties promotes the success of African American students (Cabrera, 1999). Cultural models on the competence of ethnic minority students suggest that extended family may play a role in the adjustment of emerging adults (García Coll et al., 1996). Extended family may provide advice, counseling, and instrumental and emotional support that may promote effective attitudes and behaviors in students, which in turn, may diminish the likelihood of emotional or psychological distress. More effective and emotionally well-adjusted students are likely to display greater college adjustment. Recent research has shown that African American students with more positive relations with kin were less vulnerable to stress, psychological problems and poor college adjustment (Gebre & Taylor, 2017). The present study examined whether kin support was linked to college adjustment through the association with students’ self-efficacy and psychological well-being (Figure 1).
Methods
Participants
Participants were 98 African American college students (Mage=20.8, SD= 1.66), including 71 females and 27 males. The majority lived away from home (78.8%) and spoke to extended family at least once per week (58.2%).
Measures
Kin support. Kin support was measured with the Kin Support Scale (Taylor et al., 1993).
Self-efficacy. Academic self-efficacy was assessed with the Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (Maslach, Leiter, & Schaufeli, 2008).
Psychological well-being. Psychological well-being was measured with the Kessler Psychological Distress scale (Kessler et al., 2002).
College adjustment. Overall college adjustment was assessed with the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (Baker & Siryk, 1986).

Results and Discussion
Serial multiple mediation analysis conducted using least squares path analysis and the PROCESS macro for SPSS model 6 (Hayes, 2013) assessed whether kin social support influenced students’ college adjustment through the effects on self-efficacy, which affected psychological well-being, which in turn, affected college adjustment. Shown in Table 1, kin support was positively associated with self-efficacy (a1 = 2.90, p < .001) and negatively related to psychological distress (a2 = -2.90, p < .001). Also, self-efficacy was negatively linked to psychological distress (d21 = -.43, p < .004) and positively associated with college adjustment (b1 = .06, p < .001). Additionally, psychological distress was negatively related to college adjustment (b2 = -.02, p < .007). A bootstrap confidence interval (CI) for the indirect effect of kin support (a1d21b1 = -.03) using 10,000 bootstrap samples was .005 to .09, indicating that there was evidence of an indirect effect of kin support on college adjustment in serial order through self-efficacy and in turn, psychological distress. Also, the indirect effect of kin support on college adjustment through self-efficacy was significant (a2b1 = .19, CI = .08, .34). Results are in line with the conceptual rationale that support from extended family may promote effective behaviors in students, which may diminish the likelihood of psychological distress. The decreased likelihood of experiencing psychological distress may promote college adjustment.

Authors

• Azeb Gebre, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• Motunrayo Olaniyan, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ronald Taylor, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author