The Impact of Parental Involvement on College Student Outcomes

Abstract

There is growing concern that student development may be hindered by the current level of parental involvement experienced by college students (Cullaty, 2011; Pizzolato & Hicklen, 2011; Taub, 2008). To gain insight into this concern, this study sought to examine the relationship between the parental involvement of college students and their development of self-authorship. Specifically, this study attempted to quantitatively analyze the relationship between parental involvement and the development of self-authorship for a sample of traditional aged college students at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. This analysis was attempted using the Self-Authorship portion of the Career Decision Making Survey (CDMS-SA), which displayed preliminary evidence as a reliable and valid measure of self-authorship (Creamer, Baxter Magolda, & Yue, 2010). The data obtained through the use of CDMS-SA in this study did not display acceptable reliability and thus this study was unable to answer the original research question. Due to the rich data obtained on the parental involvement of the college student participants in this study, however, a Post Hoc analysis examined the relationship between parental involvement and college student grade point average (GPA). This analysis included the following parental involvement variables: 1) level of parental involvement, 2) autonomy-supportive parenting, 3) parental warmth, 4) helicopter parenting, 5) the specificity of the parent involved, and 6) the identification of who initiated (parent, student, or equal) the parental involvement. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis found that a student’s year in school, their gender, their mother’s involvement, student initiated parental involvement, their overall parental involvement, and their assessment of parental warmth were all statistically significant predictors of a GPA.