Association of Kin Support with College Adjustment Among African American Students

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

African American college students are often the first generation in their family to attend college and are four times more likely to drop out than their peers (Engle & Tinto, 2008). Students away from home for the first time may be at risk for psychological distress (Makaremi, 2000) and less adequate coping (Perera & DiGiacomo, 2015; Sevaty-Seib & Lockman, 2017), putting them at risk for academic adjustment problems (Heilgenstien, Guenther, Hsu, & Herman, 1996; Scott, et al., 2008). Recent research has shown that support from extended family is positively linked to college adjustment (Gebre & Taylor, 2017). Support from kin may promote student’s psychological well-being and may also promote active coping. Help from extended family may include emotional support, advice and counseling which may diminish the likelihood of depression (Taylor, 2010) and increase likelihood of active coping skills (Budescu & Silverman, 2017). The investigation assessed whether kin support was positively linked to college adjustment and academic efficacy, because of the association with decreased depression and increased active coping.
Methods
A sample of 147 African American undergraduate students (83.7% female, M age = 21.70, SD = 4.72) were recruited from a large public university located in the northeastern United States. Out of these participants, 15.7% reported a combined parental income of less than $20,000.
Demographic background. Participants’ demographic information collected included age, gender, living situation, work status, and their family income.
Kin support. Kin emotional support was measured with the Kinship Relations Scale (Taylor et al., 1993).
Depression. Depression was measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D; Radlof, 1977).
Active coping. Active coping was measured with questions from the COPE inventory (Carver, 1989).
Academic adjustment. Academic Adjustment was measured using 6 questions from the Student Adjustment to College Questionnaire (SACQ) (Baker & Siryk, 1989).
Academic efficacy. Academic efficacy was measured using 6 questions from the Maslach Burnout Inventory. (Schaufeli, Marínez, Pinto, Salanova, Bakker, 2002).
Two mediation analyses were performed using Hayes’ PROCESS v3.4 (2019).
Results
Findings revealed support for the mediating effects of depression and active coping on the realtionship between kin support and academic adjustment. There was no significant direct effect of kin support on academic adjustment (b = -.014, p >.05). There was a significant total indirect effect through both depression and active coping (b = .23, 95% CI [ .09, .36]) on the relationship between kin support and academic adjustment.
Findings also showed the mediating effect of depression and active coping on the relationship between kin support and academic efficacy. There was no significant direct effect of kin support on academic efficacy (b = -.15, p = .88). There was also a significant indirect effect of kin support on academic efficacy through active coping (b = .09, 95% CI [.01, .18]). Results suggest that kin support is linked to positive adjustment and active coping skills that in turn, are associated with student’s social and academic functioning. The active promotion of family involvement and engagement may be particularly important for African American students.

Authors

• Amanda Smith, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• Ronald D Taylor, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author