1. Predictors of Parenting Self-Efficacy in Parents Attending College
Heather Conn and Sara Sohr-Preston
Department of Psychology, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA
INTRODUCTION
This study represents a unique attempt to better understand the struggles of parents balancing childrearing and higher education duties.
While past studies have focused on academic outcomes, we targeted potential impact on parenting.
Self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their capabilities to produce a specific level of performance that will exercise influence over events that affect their lives. These self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave. Four major processes are used when determining self-efficacy; cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes (Bandura, 1994).
There are many different factors that can affect how a parent may feel regarding their parenting skills. Some of these factors may include social support and role conflict (Erdwins et al., 2001), and current depressive symptoms (Salonen et al., 2009).
We examined predictors of parenting self-efficacy in both mothers’ and fathers’ (whether biological parents, adoptive parents, stepparents, foster parents, or legal guardians) enrolled in university-level courses.
Both mothers and fathers were recruited since few studies have been conducted examining father’s parenting self-efficacy (see Sevigny & Loutzenhiser, 2009)
PROCEDURE
Participants completed online surveys on demographic information, parenting self-efficacy, social support, depression symptoms, and school-home conflict.
A multiple regression analysis was executed predicting parenting self-efficacy.
Parents’ sex and age in years were entered as control variables.
MEASURES
RESULTS
ABSTRACT
PARTICIPANTS
RESULTS OF MULTIPLE REGRESSION
College undergraduates parenting at least one child reported on parenting self-efficacy, social support, depressive symptoms, and school-home conflict. Multiple regression results suggested social support to be significant predictor of parenting self-efficacy when other factors were held constant.
Data collection is still ongoing, but these results were obtained with 116 participants (mean age = 24.68; % females; 59.65% White)
53.51% parenting at least one girl
46.49% parenting at least one boy
51.33% parenting 0-2 year-old
22.12% parenting 3-5 year-old
73.50% parenting 1 child (max = 5)
78.07% biological parents
85.09% custodial parents
All participants were currently enrolled in college and caring for at least one child under the age of 18.
Recruited from introductory and developmental psychology classes
Predictor β p R2
Participant age
.09
.27
Participant sex
.24
.00
.12
Social support
.50
School-home conflict
.45
.65
Depressive symptoms
.78
.44
.36
Note. Significant predictors bolded. The change in R2
from the first model (control variables) to the final model was significant (p = .00)
Perceived Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (PPSE; Barnes & Adamson-Macedo, 2007) Higher scores on this scale indicated a greater sense of parenting self-efficacy in which parents believe they are achieving their goals of being a successful parent.
Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MRSS; Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet & Farley, 1988) Higher scores on this scale indicated a greater level of social support.
Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ; Kroenke et al., 2001) Higher score on this scale indicated more depressive symptoms.
Work-Home Role Conflict Scale (modified version) (Stoner et al., 1990). Higher score on this scale indicated a greater school-home conflict.
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS
These early results indicated that mothers attending college generally reported significantly higher parenting self-efficacy than fathers attending college.
Male student-parents may need additional support
Perceived social support was positively correlated with parenting self-efficacy.
Parents lacking support may doubt their parenting more
Influence on academic performance and retention unknown at this time
Other included predictors did not exhibit significant associations with the dependent variable despite previous research suggesting they would
Social support emerged as the strongest predictor when all variables were considered together in the same model
Professionals and friends/family seeking to maximize success of student-parents should be aware of evidence that social support linked to greater confidence in parenting abilities
Females tended to report higher parenting self-efficacy , β = .24
While controlling for all other predictors, a positive association remained between perceived parenting self efficacy and perceived social support (β = .50, p = .001.)
Final model R2 = .36