Department of Psychological Science
University of Mary Washington
Mercer Hall
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Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401
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In your pie graph, you reported that 16% of your sample were solely taking in-person classes. How might this affect the interpretation of your analyses?
Thank you for your comment, this was something we thought was important to note because it is likely something that did effect our study. I ran our MANOVA excluding the in person and hybrid students’ responses and interestingly the results were still pretty much the same when we isolated the fully online students, now this could be because at that point it is such a small group of responses. I think that mainly this mix of class setting effected the validity and reliability of the study however I don’t think in this particular study we would have had more significant findings. However with a larger sample maybe this would have been more clear, so I do think future research should try to have groups of students fully online and fully in person.
It was interesting that you all found significant findings for mental well being on online learning. I wonder if there would be different results if there was a more diverse and larger sample size.
Hi Cayla!
Thanks for commenting. It’s possible that because our sample size was quite small and the sample was not as diverse that the outcome results are what they are but I think that if our sample size and diversity increased/changed it would have an opposite effect.
This is a really interesting study! Do you think that your results might have been different had you had a more diverse sample of people who took your study? Over 90% of your participants identified as white. Is it possible that white parents objectively engage in less helicopter parenting than parents of other races?
Hello Eva, thank you for your comment. I do think that the lack of diversity effected our findings. It is possible that white parents engage in less helicopter parenting, this would be something I would need to look into more. It is also possible that people who identify as white or even females have a different perception to that style of parenting. I think that in future research I would love to have more ethnic diversity as well as gender diversity.
It was interesting that you didn’t find any significant results in regards to helicopter parenting because with the students being home it would e easier for them to be involved. Could possibly expand on that?
I really like the topic of your study! I think it’s of great importance to examine how COVID and online learning have impacted students academically and mentally, I know a lot of people are struggling right now. I think it’s interesting that you did not find a significant effect of online learning on mental well-being because a lot of students have been struggling with mental health during these times. Maybe this is due to the sample size?
Thank you Shelby, we think it is interesting that we did not find a significant effect of online learning on mental well-being as well! Through research and listening about mental health professionals’ responses about this pandemic, many say we are facing a mental health pandemic right now as well. We think that this trend is less because of the sample size and more due to the fact that remembering how you felt or thought a year ago is difficult to accurately do. However in meetings with Dr. Schiffrin and listening to some explanations of other medical professionals it could be possible that students feel like they have more free time since we can’t really engage in extracurriculars how we normally would. Another interesting possibility comes from the Stress in America 2020 study where they found our generation is sleeping more than we normally would, and with the class type we are more easily able to take naps and rest an appropriate amount. In that study they suggest that since sleep and well-being are associated that this may be helping during this time.
How do you think your results would have differed with the additional of more males in your sample? Studies have shown that on average females get better grades than males so do you think you would see an even larger decrease in academic success? Really interesting study- good job!
Hi Isabel, thanks for your comment! That’s a really good point. I think it is entirely possible that the having more males in the study could result in a bigger decrease in academic success. It’s also possible that a more diverse study might even result in other parts of our study being significant as well, such as the effect of helicopter parenting on academic success and mental well-being.
I thought this was an extremely interesting and useful study considering our current situation. If you were to have asked about the participants’ living situation, whether on their own vs. living with their parents, that you would have seen a difference in helicopter parenting scores? Do you think this would have effected the results of your second hypothesis?
Hi Anthony!
Yes, I believe if we were to have asked our participants about living situations our scores would have resulted differently being as children living with helicopter parents are at more proximity then children living away on campus. I believe it would affect our second hypothesis since we did find significance with online learning and it’s affect on academic success, I think it would affect mental well-being as well because of living circumstances.
Hi Cayla, we actually did not find significant results for mental well being on online learning but I agree with you that maybe if our sample was larger or more diverse we likely would have found this to be significant. Our observed power here was .432 which was pretty good all things considering.
Thank you Corey! We found this result really interesting as well, since prior research points to higher helicopter parenting being associated with lower academic success and mental well-being. One possible explanation for this is our sample size. Since we didn’t have a lot of people in our study, we might have seen a bigger difference between the the low helicopter parenting group and the high helicopter parenting group with a larger sample size, which could have produced different results. Previous research has looked at helicopter parenting as a continuous variable but we had to change our helicopter parenting variable from a continuous variable into a nominal variable in order for it to work in our study. This could be another reason why we did not see any significant differences. Since we didn’t ask whether our participants were living at home with their parents or on their own, its also possible that many of our participants were actually not living with their parents, and thus, they could have been experiencing less helicopter parenting rather than more.
Great job, very interesting topic! I saw where for future research you had re-design study under that category. What might you do to re-design the study? And how might the analyses and results change because of the re-design?
Hi Andrea! Thanks for commenting. We believe that there would be different outcomes if the study was redesigned in the group subject area. We think that for future research eliminating recall bias and placing group subjects who are solely online or completely in person would alter the results and helicopter parenting would be interval instead of a nominal variable.
I found your study to be very interesting! The pie chart brought up a question for me. You looked at students who were taking in person, hybrid, and online classes. Did you all look at students who were taking a mix of those classes and if not, how do you think their results would have been different?
Hi Sarah, yes those were the percentages of students who were in online, in person, and hybrid classes. I do think that our results might be different in a future study where we just have in person and online since it would be more drastic differences in learning experience. I think that we may have been able to find more dramatic differences between academic success in this case.
If you were to look at access to a stable internet connection do you think that academic success and well-being would change? I know that personally, for a while I didnt have a good connection to internet and it was stressful knowing that I wasnt able to go on zoom as easily or do work as easily since it was very spotty. The study is very interesting especially since everyone has had to go online. Another questions do you think the switch from in person to online and vice verse would affect how students would adjust and how that would affect your variables?
Hi Jamie,
I think that brings up a really interesting question with internet connection. I think that for us academic success was a wide variable and looking into what aspects of online learning effected it the most would be interesting. We mainly look at internal factors for academic success but ideas of looking at internet connection learning space (private office or family dinner table) would be really interesting. I think the adjustment is a large reason why online school is hard and maybe the switch back to in person will be easier for some but I think any adjustment in school setting will have a learning curve. Thank you!
I love your topic a lot! It’s very current. I noticed a lot of comments talking about how maybe a larger sample size would have given you a significant result for online learning’s impact on mental health. I wonder that it is not online learning that is making people struggle and rather the circumstances behind why they are having to take courses online such as covid in general. I feel like online learning is really just a side effect of the main issue.
Thank you Megan,
Yes I agree and this is a major confound of our study. I saw one of the other PsiChi groups’ presentation and they used this stress around COVID scale which would be interesting to use in this study in order to reduce this confound and see what is overall stress from COVID vs. online learning.
Your research topic is so relevant to the time it is being conducted in as we all are having to adapt to online learning. It would be interesting to have seen the results with a larger sample size. I understand the research backing in person learning over online. The stress could be coming from online learning being a new norm that was forced upon individuals. A COVID-19 stress tolerance measure could be added for future research to account for COVID related stress. Overall, I think you all had a very interesting topic, great job!
Thank you Heather,
I agree with everything you’ve said. I feel like we were all forced to adapt to many new norms, which is feeling a lot more real with the holidays. I saw the study that included that measure and thought the same exact thing! Thank you for your comments.
Very interesting work. Good job!
Thank you Dr. Rettinger
Very interesting study. I too was surprised that mental health did not decrease from their recall of last year. I see you had a lot of interesting suggestions in the comments – the idea that people are sleeping more is quite interesting. I think my kids mental health has decreased since COVID but they are not sleeping more since they still have to get up early for virtual school! I wonder how helicopter parenting is affecting academic performance and mental well being in the K-12 group. I think for younger kids with higher needs more involved parenting is probably necessary to help them navigate technology etc. So it would not be considered helicopter parenting until it is intrusive and unwanted!
Thank you for your comment Dr. Liss,
I agree that HP on academic performance and mental well being in younger students would be interesting. Interestingly that same Stress in America study that mentions sleep increase as a possibility for higher levels of mental well being is suggested mainly in the lens that Gen Z is the most stressed out generation in general and specifically this year of 2020 however this study found that the Gen Z minors were less stressed than the Gen Z adults. Which could possibly suggest that mental well being in general is better for those kids in K-12 compared to college students.
That was a really interesting study! You all did a great job.
I thought it was interesting that mental health did not decrease considering this past year. I know a mix of answers I have gotten from asking people is either metal health is better or it is worse so I think thats very interesting. Do you think that maybe people overreact and say out of frustration of their parents watching over them, they consider it to be hellicopter parenting? I am not sure, just a thought.
Great job though!
Thank you Patricia,
As far as the comment on helicopter parenting I think it has a lot to do with the perception. I think its less overreaction and more just individual perceptions of what is too much parenting. An example is like my sister and I are very different and if my mom tried to send my academic advisor an email I would be mortified but for my sister that is involvement that she wants from my mom. So I think it really has to do with the perception of what is too much parenting for that specific person. Hope this answers your question.
A very interesting study! I also found it odd that there were no significant findings on well being. I wonder if there would be any significance in a strictly online setting? I know some universities are already an online university and I wonder if the pandemic has had any effect on their online learning.
Hi Leah,
Thank you for your comments. I think that we could find significant results if there was a strictly online and strictly in person group. It would be interesting to see these results through.