Department of Psychological Science
University of Mary Washington
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Contact Dr. Mindy Erchull: merchull@umw.edu
This is a super interesting study! I agree with Shelby – I would be interesting in seeing this tested with a larger sample on non-first gen students because I think that your hypotheses are both well informed and extremely interesting. My group had a similar issue with having a much smaller sample size of single parent households compared to dual parent households, which we think may be responsible for some of the non-significant findings in this study.
Thanks Eva for the comment! I agree with both you and Shelby. I think it would be interesting to see the result with a larger sample size of both non-first-gen and first-gen students. I think that was a problem for quite a few of us, not having a big enough sample. I also agree with you thinking that the small sample size of firs-gen students for us and single parenting households for your group could be the reason for some of the non-significant findings.
In what ways would you have changed your analysis if you had considered the variable of COVID-19 that you mentioned under limitations? Do you think this would have changed your hypotheses or the outcomes of your data? Great job this semester!
Thanks for the comment Isabel! I think if we took the variable COVID-19 into consideration we would have changed the survey by adding questions, for instance asking whether or not they had felt a certain way health wise since before COVID or after. I believe our survey would have definitely been changed. As far as the analyses go I believe we would have run a MANOVA. I definitely think our outcomes would have changed maybe a little bit, and as far as our hypotheses go they would have changed as well. I think if we considered COVID as a variable we would have wanted to see if COVID has affected general health, academic outcomes, as well as college adjustment while still looking at both first-gen-students and non-first-gen students. Also, Thank you!! Great job as well!!
Given that helicopter parenting was correlated with less self-efficacy and less self-efficacy was correlated with less academic success, why do you think that the mediation analysis was not significant?
The mediation analysis was most likely not significant despite these correlations due to there being no difference between the first-generation or non-first-generation sample populations. It may also be due to helicopter parenting having non significant associations with the other variables.
Can you elaborate more on why difference between generations weren’t found?
Thanks for your question Corey! I believe that differences weren’t found between firs-generation-students and non-first-generation-students because of the time we are living in with COVID-19. I think that may have had an impact on how new students regardless if they were first generation students or not, and how they adjusted to college. The way these 2020 freshman are adjusting to college is very different from how we adjusted to college a couple years ago. I think COVID-19 has also impacted mental health, so the survey each participant filled out on general health could have been impacted by this. Therefore, we didn’t see any differences between generations. I know that there could be more reasons as to why, but I believe that may have been the biggest reason. This is way we thought future research should be done without COVID-19 being present in our world.
I think it’s interesting that there was no significant difference between first generation and non-first generation college students. Do you think this may be due to having a majority of non-first generation students? Maybe there wasn’t enough data from first-generation students to support a significant difference.
Thank you for your question Shelby. I do believe that the reason why there was no significant difference between first generation students and non first generation students could be because there was not enough first generation students. Also I think it could have been because of the sample size as well the fact that there was more females than males in our study. I believe that there was just not enough data to generalize the results of the study.
How do you think a more diverse sample could have effected these findings? I know you mention it as a possible limitation, how would you try to recruit a more representative sample in order to better investigate this topic?
Thank you for your response toward our study Maggie. I do believe that if we had a more diverse sample it could have effected the findings in our study. First generation students are more likely to be minority students because of the disparities within income and education levels, as a result I predict there would be more first generation students in our study that could have added to our sample size and possibly given us a significant effect. If someone were to replicate this study I suggest that they would do a longitudinal study and research be conducted at a more diverse university.
I’m a little confused by your operational definition of first generation versus non first generation since it seems like if someone had one parent/guardian who earned a BS and one who did not then they would fit into both categories. Also, is there any literature on whether education (whether one earns at least a BS or not) correlates to helicopter parenting? Put another way, is there a reason to expect that first generation students may have been helicopter parented more or less than non-first generation students?
If you had been able to do a longitudinal study, how do you think your results would be different?
If we were able to run a longitudinal study, our results would be able to show the progression of student’s adjustment, mental well-being, self-efficacy, and academic success over time. We’d also see how their parents continued to helicopter parent throughout college. This data would allow us to gather more information and be able to get a sense of the student’s true scores rather than one score at a single point in time. We’d also be able to adjust for confounds such as COVID-19. By doing this, we’d theoretically be able to see relationships between the variables and hopefully be able to explain those relationships.
You’re study was quite interesting and being a first generation myself.. I’m quite surprised with the results. Is there a possibility that there wasn’t a difference between first generations and non first generations due to the sample size, as well as maybe less diversity? Commonly first generation students tend to come from diverse backgrounds.
We definitely think the results we saw are due to the sample size and possibly diversity. Based on the previous research, this is not what we expected to find. Perhaps with a much larger sample size, a more diverse population, and equal groups of first-gen and non-first-gen, we would see the results we would expect.
I was struck by your early definition of first-generation students as having at least one parent who did not go to college. I am not familiar with this research, but always assumed that first-gen students are the first in their families to attend college. Is that a standard definition of first-generation students in this research area?
Yes, the definition we presented is the standard definition across the articles we read. It is also a standard definition used by colleges. We had a long conversation about it and if it should be anyone who’s parents went to college at all or any one who had a parent obtain a bachelor’s degree.
In the Higher Education Act of 1965, 1998 Higher Education Act Amendments, Subpart 2 lists the following definition:
(A) An individual both of whose parents did not complete a baccalaureate degree;
or
(B) In the case of any individual who regularly resided with and received support
from only one parent, an individual whose only such parent did not complete
a baccalaureate degree.
Do you expect to see more first generation college students with more diversity? would you only look at race or would you also think about economic state of different families?
Do you think that maybe covid impacted the number of first gen students who even came to college this year? I feel like that number probably dropped due to fear of the virus. So I wonder if that impacted your study.
Interesting study. Too bad the mediation didn’t work out. Good work!
I found your research to be very interesting. I assume most people who partake in helicopter parenting are doing it to ensure that their child does the best and succeed in life but your results indicate that that is not the case. The negative correlations between helicopter parenting and academic success and self efficacy are definitely pertinent. As stated, a more diverse sample size will be key for future researchers in terms of generalizability. Great project and addition to existing research.
I was a bit confused about where you thought the moderator would come into play in the mediated moderation. Was it the path between helicopter parenting and self efficacy or the past between self efficacy and academic success?
Also, the non significant moderation should not have effected whether the mediation was significant. Given the bivariates I thought the mediation would be significant but I guess helicopter parenting and self efficacy have non-overlapping effects on academic success.
Wow! that was so interesting! That is super interesting that it did not show a difference in first generation and non first generation college kids. I also thought it was reallly interesting how as academic success decreases helicopter parenting increases and the same for self efficacy. You would think having a parent be all over you would help you succeed but instead it gets in your way of being able to do it yourself and actually succeed.
I really enjoyed watching this and learning about this more. You all did great!
Great job! I think it is interesting that there was no significant difference between the students that were first generation vs. non-first generation and I wonder if it is due to the low number of first generation students in your sample. Do you think that levels of self-efficacy may have been impacted by COVID and, therefore, changed your effects?
In terms of COVID restrictions affecting your results, how do you think you could’ve added to your study to possibly control for these or include another measure? I would think that there would have been a difference from the first generation to non-first generation students and I wonder if this situation has had an effect on that. It was also interesting that helicopter parenting had a negative effect on academic success. I would think that would push a student to do better, however, not many students are under the same roof as a helicopter parent once they’re in college. What a great job with this study!