Poster #84 - Civic Engagement and Well-Being during the Transition to In-Person Instruction among Incoming College Students

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

The transition to college can be challenging (Conley et al., 2014), especially when compounded with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, during which students had to also transition between remote and in-person instruction. Therefore, efforts are needed to identify ways of promoting adjustment during this transition. Civic engagement has been related to positive outcomes among youth (Flanagan & Levine, 2010), although social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic limited opportunities to engage in such behaviors. The present study examined whether civic engagement during high school was related to better well-being during the transition to college.
First-year college students (N=308, Mage=18.2, SD=0.5; 80.5% female; 37.3% Asian, 23.1% White, 22.4% Latino) completed a survey in the Fall of 2021, when the university resumed in-person instruction. They completed four measures of civic engagement over the past year (i.e., in high school): the attitudes and behaviors subscales of the Civic Engagement Scale (e.g., "I help members of my community", "I feel responsible for my community", respectively; Doolittle & Faul, 2013), a measure of civic behavior (e.g., "I was engaged in social causes that I care about"; Suarez-Orozco et al., 2015), and a measure of civic participation (e.g., “I helped make my neighborhood a better place for people to live"; Bobek et al., 2009; all αs .81-90). They also rated the extent to which they experienced positive emotion over the past week using the Joviality subscale of the PANAS-X (e.g., joyful, cheerful; α=.96; Watson & Clark, 1994), experienced depressive symptoms over the past week using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CESD; e.g., "I felt lonely, I talked less than usual"; α=.92; Radloff, 1997), felt a sense of purpose using items taken from prior scales (e.g., "My life has a clear sense of purpose"; α=.88; Bundick et al., 2008; Lippman et al., 2014), and felt connected to the campus community using a modified version of the single-item Inclusion of Other in Self scale (IOS; Aron et al., 1992).
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to create a latent factor of civic engagement, which showed excellent fit, RMSEA<.001, CFI=1, TLI=1, SRMR=.002. Models then tested whether this latent factor predicted depressive symptoms, positive emotion, purpose, and connection to the campus community. Contrary to hypotheses, civic engagement was not related to depressive symptoms. However, higher civic engagement was related to higher positive emotion (β=.25, p<.001), purpose (β=.20, p=.001), and connection to the campus community (β=.40, p<.001). Model fit was acceptable, RMSEA=.077, CFI=.97, TLI=.93, SRMR=.044. Results were replicated when controlling for age, gender, income, and parents’ education.
Although civic engagement was not related to depressive symptoms, students who were more engaged in their community tended to report better positive outcomes, including higher positive emotion, purpose in life, and connection to the university campus community as hypothesized. In line with prior research, civic engagement may promote positive outcomes by fostering a sense of belonging or contribution. Future research can investigate the factors that can support youth in civic engagement and identify whether efforts to promote such behaviors can ease the college transition.

Author

• Danny Rahal, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author