Author: Debra A. ZavatkayPublisher:
ISBN: 9781321277821
Category : Community college students
Languages : en
Pages : 588
Book Description
A survey method was used to examine community college students' perceptions of the social support received, its importance, and their academic persistence. The College Social Support Survey (Harrington, 2011), a modified version of the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS; Malecki, Demaray, & Elliott, 2000) was administered to 304 students at four of Connecticut's 12 community colleges. This self-report questionnaire assesses four different types of social support (i.e., emotional, informational, appraisal, and instrumental), five sources of support (i.e., family members, professors, classmates, a close friend, and other people at the college), and the importance students place on that support. It also was designed to elicit participants' descriptions of the stress they experienced related to school and being a student. Additionally, the study looked at the relationship between social supports perceived and their relationship to academic persistence. Data analyses revealed that emotional support was the most often perceived and informational support was the most important type of social support perceived. While appraisal support was the second least frequently perceived and the least important type of support perceived, there was a small positive correlation between the frequency of appraisal support perceived and academic persistence. Data analysis also revealed that social support received from professors was the second most frequently perceived and the most important source of social support and resulted in a small positive correlation between the frequency of support perceived from professors and academic persistence. Numerous other significant correlations were found between the types and sources of support and academic persistence. Finally, participants in this study reported they experienced stress related to school and being a college student and identified stressors that were similar to those identified in the literature. Given that the participants' greatest source of stress was trying to balance their coursework with their job responsibilities, this confirms prior research findings that community college students in particular, often experience additional stressors including balancing multiple classes with other commitments such as work or family. In concurrence with the literature, perceived social support has been found to buffer the negative effects of stress typically experienced by college students.
