2013/01/01 by Steffen Wilson, Jonathan Gore, Jonathan S. Gore · 4 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Attachment and Relationship Dynamics #Parental Involvement in Education #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
paper · doi:10.1080/00220973.2012.699902
Abstract Students with high levels of connectedness to the university have been found to be more likely to complete their college degree than are students with low levels of university connectedness. This study examined the role of parental and peer attachment as distal predictors of school connectedness. As predicted, it was found that attachment style to parents predicted attachment style to peers. An avoidant attachment style to peers predicted negative perceptions of peer support and support services. An anxious attachment style to peers predicted negative perceptions of faculty support. Perceptions of peer support, support services, and faculty support then predicted feelings of connectedness to the university. Classroom comfort also predicted university connectedness, although it was not found to be related to attachment style to parents or peers. Implications for college students and college/university administrators are discussed. Keywords: attachmentcollege studentsschool connectednessuniversity environment Notes An alternative model was estimated to examine the direct association of parental attachment on the school perception variables, rather than having an indirect association through attachment to friends. The results showed that this model did not fit the data as well as the original model (as indicated by the goodness of fit criteria), χ2(24) = 198.48, p < .01; GFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.11. A chi square difference test indicated that it was also significantly different from the original model, Δχ2(6) = 122.04, p < .01, which suggests that the original model, with the indirect association of parental attachment on school perceptions through friend attachment, is a better representation of the data than the alternative model. FIGURE 2 Results for the attachment model of university connectedness. Display full size