3.4 POBLACIÓN Y MUESTRA
4.2.3 Viabilidad poblacional del jaguar ( Panthera onca )
Correlating attachment and adjustment to college measures.
One of the main aims of the present study was to explore whether the positive associations between parental attachment and adjustment to college found for the U.S. students could be found for the more diverse sample of UK further education students. Pearson Product Moment correlations^ were performed between all the attachment and adjustment measures. (See Table 12.6)
The full scale adjustment to college measure AdColl27 correlated significantly with all the attachment measures, although the very high level of significance was probably exaggerated because the sample size was large. The correlation coefficient between AdColl27 and the full scale PAQ (r = 0.3536, n= 309, p<.0001) suggested a strong positive association between overall adjustment and parental attachment. This was consistent with the initial research by Kenny (1987), who found that first year students
^To cover any inappropriate use of parametric statistics, Spearmans Rank correlations were also calculated throughout. The size of each correlation was very close to that of the Pearson, which is quoted throughout for consistency.
TABLE 12.6
Correlations between Adjustment to College Measure (AdColl 27) and its Subscales and Attachment Measures and their Subscales
Measure n AdColl 27 Social Adjust. Work Adjust. Attendance Adj.
Attachment (PAQ) 309 .3536**** .1550** 3804**** 2084****
Affective Quality 309 .3564**** .1246* .3879**** .2455****
Foster Autonomy 309 .1796** .0550 .2211**** .0962
Emotional Support 309 .3857**** .2663**** .3734**** .1599**
IPPA for Mothers 302 .3542**** .1522** .3872**** 2018****
Trust 302 2931**** .0976 .3294**** .1915***
Communication 302 .3521**** 1722* * .3876**** .1689**
(non) Alienation 302 .3108**** .1451* 3215* * * .1885***
IPPA for Fathers 264 .3102**** .1949*** .3319**** .1089
Trust 264 2660**** .1316* 3007* * * * .1160
Communication 264 2905**** .1988*** .3289**** .0540
(non) Alienation 264 2920**** .2194**** .2578**** .1369*
IPPA for Peers 311 .2651**** .3490**** .1466** .0510
Trust 311 .2335**** .3354**** .1300* .0069 Communication 311 .1875**** .2707**** .0845 .0328 (non) Alienation 311 .2763**** 2869**** .1787** .1165* AdCoU 27 315 1.0000 .6754**** .8386**** .6271**** Social Adjust. 315 1.0000 .3111**** .0724 Adjust, to Work 315 1.0000 .4313**** Attendance Adj. 315 1.0000
Correlations calculated by Pearson Product Moment - 2-tailed significance *p< .05, **p<.01, ***p<.001, ****p<.0001
who had entered a selective and highly prestigious university reported high parental attachment, and her later studies showing positive adaptation associated with parental attachment, as measured on the PAQ (Kenny, 1990; 1994). Of the subscales, parents providing Emotional Support was the most highly correlated with AdColl27 (r = 0.3857, n= 309, p<.0001). Fostering Autonomy produced the lowest correlation (r = 0.1796, n = 309, p<.01) suggesting that this aspect of attachment was less associated with adjustment than either Emotional support or the Affective quality of the relationship.
The IPPAs for Mothers and for Fathers also showed highly significant correlations, with Mothers consistently producing higher correlation coefficients on the comparative subscales. For Mothers the full scale provided the highest correlation with AdColl27 (r= 0.3542, n=302, p<.0001). Similarly for Fathers the overall combination of subscales provided the highest correlation, (r = 0.3102, n= 264, p<.0001) with the Trust subscale producing the lowest, but still significant, correlation (r = 0.2920, p< .0001). The strong positive associations between attachment for each parent with adjustment to college is consistent with the findings by Armsden & Greenberg (1987), that adolescents with highly secure parental attachment appeared to be very well adjusted, and with subsequent research using the IPPA. This ranged from showing that positive parental attachment was associated with positive adaptive behaviour at school in New Zealand (Nada Raja et al, 1992) and associated with positive commitment to career development for college seniors (Blustein et al., 1991).
Adjustment to college also correlated significantly with attachment to peers although the correlation coefficient between AdColl27 and IPPA for Peers was lower than for parents. (As the size of correlation was small, the significance level was treated with caution.) These results were consistent with those of Nada Raja et al., who reported that psychological well-being in early adolescence was more strongly associated with the perceived level of attachment to parents rather than to peers. In the present study, the highest correlation was on the Alienation subscale (r = 0.2763, n= 311, p<.0001) suggesting that students with least anger and resentment towards their peers were the better adjusted to college.
Attachment and Social Adjustment
Looking at the Social Adjustment subscale, not surprisingly peer attachment showed the highest associations. All the correlations were highly significant at the p<.0001 level with full scale IPPA for Peers producing the highest ( r = 0.3490, n = 311, p<.0001).
The association between social adjustment and parental attachment varied. On the PAQ Emotional Support was correlated with social adjustment (r = 0.2663, n= 309, p<.0001), whereas parental Fostering of Autonomy did not produce a significant correlation (r = 0.0550, n.s.) Correlations between social adjustment and the IPPAs for Mothers and for Fathers were almost all statistically significant, again because of the sample size, but the correlation coefficients were not particularly large.
Attachment and Adjustment to Work
In contrast. Adjustment to Work at college showed stronger positive association with the measures of parental attachment, which all had correlations that were significant at the level p<.0001. More pertinently the correlation coefficients were all larger than 0.3, except for the PAQ Fostering Autonomy and the IPPA for Fathers Alienation subscales. Adjustment to work was less strongly associated with Peer attachment, the highest correlation being on the Alienation scale (r= 0.1787, n= 311, p<.01).
Attachment and Adjustment to Attendance.
Learning to attend college lessons which can be sparsely spread across four days in a week seemed to require some adjustment for adolescents who were previously used to school discipline requiring complete attendance. Adjustment to Attendance was positively associated with some but not all measures of parental attachment. The PAQ produced a significant correlation for the Affective Quality (r = 0.2455, n= 309, p<.0001) suggesting that positive feelings between parents and adolescents is associated with good attendance whereas the association between Fostering Autonomy and Attendance was not significant (r = 0.0962, n= 309, n.s.). Attachment to Mothers was also significantly correlated with Attendance on all measures. However, Attendance was not generally significantly associated with the full-scale or subscale
scores on the IPPA for Fathers or the IPPA for Peers.
Comparisons between the "more adjusted" and the "less adjusted"
Additional calculations were performed to further investigate the statistical association between adjustment to college and attachment. Subjects were grouped according to their performance on AdColl27 so that those scoring at the median of 97.00 or above were the "more adjusted" and those scoring 96.00 and below were the "less adjusted". Using independent t-tests, (all parametric assumptions being met,) these two groups were compared on all the attachment scales. The results are shown on Table 12.7. The t-tests showed that for 9 out of the 12 scales there were highly significant differences between the two groups (at p<.0001) with the "more adjusted" having higher mean scores than the "less adjusted," i.e. more adjusted students reported higher levels of attachment to both parents and peers. The t-tests were repeated using a cut off measure at the 25th percentile to compare the most poorly adjusted students with the remainder. Again all the t-tests were significant showing that the poorly adjusted students scored significantly lower on all the attachment scales than the remainder of the subjects, except on one measure, PAQ Fostering Autonomy, where, though scoring lower, the difference was not significant ( t = 1.71, d.f.= 307, n.s.) Comparing these t-test results with the Pearson correlation coefficients provided good evidence to suggest that the correlations coefficients were an indication of truly important association between attachment and adjustment and not just the result of statistical error.
The same tests were performed on the subscales for Social adjustment. Adjustment to Work and Adjustment to Attendance. These results are also shown on Table 12.7. For the Work subscale using the median to divide the more adjusted from the less adjusted, comparisons between the two groups showed significant differences at the p<.0001 level on all the parental attachment scales apart from PAQ Fostering Autonomy, with p<.01. On the peer measure there were significant differences for Alienation and the full scale (t = 2.69, d.f.= 309, p<.01 and t = 2.05, d.f. = 309, p<.05 respectively) but the Trust and Communication scales did not show significant differences. (On every scale the mean score for attachment was higher for the more
TABLE 12.7
Median-split t-tests comparing the "more adjusted" with the "less adjusted" on AdColl27 and its sub-scales for each attachment measure
Measure n AdColl 27 Social Adjust. Work Adjust. Attendance Adj.
Attachment (PAQ) 309 4.87**** 2.17* 5.27**** 2.92**
Affective Quality 309 5.03**** 1.87 3 yy 2****
Foster Autonomy 309 2.03* 0.52 2.88** 0.99
Emotional Support 309 5.55****
3 yq****
5.14**** 2.08* IPPA for Mothers 302 3.98**** 2.49* 5.08**** 2.19*Trust 302 2.89** 1.62 4.07**** 2.06*
Communication 302 4.67**** 2.86** 5.06**** 2.16*
(non) Alienation 302 3.01** 2.25* 4.52**** 1.54
IPPA for Fathers 264 4.71**** 2.73** 4.75**** 1.22
Trust 264 3.70**** 1.87 4.63**** 1.39
Communication 264 4.70**** 3.08** 4.38**** 0.70
(non) Alienation 264 4.45**** 2.58** 3.41** 1.22
IPPA for Peers 311 4.20**** 5.75**** 2.05* 0.17
Trust 311 3.59**** 5.27**** 1.61 0.70
Communication 311 2.97** 4.89**** 1.27 0.17
(non) Alienation 311 4.47**** 4.25**** 2.69** 0.74
Calculated by independent t-tests. Where parametric assumptions could not be met the Mann- Whitney U test was used and U scores were converted into z scores because the values were large. For each adjustment-attachment calculation, the z -value and the t-value was found to be very close, giving an almost identical value for p. For comparability the t-value is quoted throughout.
2-tailed significance
adjusted to work than the less adjusted. ) This evidence from the t-tests strongly supported the highly significant correlation coefficients between adjustment to work and parental attachment and the differing degrees of correlation for work adjustment and different aspects of peer attachment.
Using the same median split to divide the more socially adjusted from the less socially adjusted, comparisons on the attachment measures were made again. The most significant differences, all at the p<.0001 level, were on Peer attachment which is where the strongest correlations were found for social adjustment. Again the level of significant difference between the more and less socially adjusted on parental attachment measures reflected the strength of the Pearson correlation coefficient between that measure and social adjustment.
The same procedure was repeated for Adjustment to Attendance. For this scale the correlations with attachment were smaller and the fewer significant differences between the more adjusted and less adjusted students reflected this. Perhaps because this scale consisted of only 6 items and therefore had only a small potential range of scores it was statistically less easy to demonstrate the association between Attendance Adjustment and attachment.
Overall these comparisons strongly supported the size of correlation calculated by the Pearson Product Moment tests and indicated that they did give a true measure of association between attachment and adjustment.
Hazan & Shaver attachment categories and adjustment to college
One-way analysis of variance was again used to compare the subjects, as categorized by the Hazan and Shaver measure into secure, anxious avoidant and anxious ambivalent attachment, on the adjustment scale and subscales. As shown in Table 12.8, for the full scale AdColl27 there was a significant difference ( F = 6.25, d.f. = 2, 309; p<.01) between the securely attached group (M = 98.40, SD = 12.22) and the lower scoring anxious avoidant group ( M = 91.32, SD = 13.46). There were no significant differences between the attachment categories for either adjustment to work
Table 12.8
Table showing groups of subjects categorized by the Hazan and Shaver's attachment measure, their mean scores on the adjustment questionnaire and other attachment measures and F-ratios produced by one way analysis of variance to compare groups.
Secure Avoidant Ambivalent F
M SD (n) M SD (n) M SD (n) AdColl27 98.40 12.22 (243) 91.32 13.46 (41) 94.57 13.84 (28) 6.25** Social adj 38.86 5.68 33.68 6.61 35.75 6.03 15.84**** Work adj 37.23 6.71 34.61 6.32 35.71 7.45 3.01 Attendance 22.32 4.60 23.02 4.73 23.11 4.86 0.68 PAQ 197.04 32.87 (239) 170.28 37.64 (40) 167.22 37.68 (27) 17.85**** Affect 102.16 19.07 88.68 20.64 86.37 21.19 14.47**** Autonomy 49.83 9.58 44.65 11.21 41.67 12.82 11.11**** Emot'l supp't 45.05 8.33 36.95 10.53 39.18 8.33 18.65**** IPPA Moth 93.25 19.13 (235) 82.16 20.40 (37) 81.37 20.84 (27) 8.69*** Trust 39.70 8.28 36.92 7.84 35.26 8.37 4.82** Commun'n 31.23 7.92 26.54 9.22 27.44 9.12 7.02** Alien'n 22.32 5.15 18.70 5.37 18.67 5.42 12.25**** IPPA Fath 85.49 21.31 (206) 68.75 23.35 (32) 71.17 21.80 (23) 11.60**** Trust 37.31 9.34 30.38 10.58 31.65 11.08 9.65**** Commun'n 26.97 8.67 20.75 8.88 21.91 8.07 9.68**** Alien'n 21.29 5.65 17.63 6.44 17.61 5.31 8.52*** IPPA Peers 100.91 14.00 (241) 88.05 18.21 (40) 90.11 14.50 (27) 17.85**** Trust 42.89 6.06 36.85 8.90 38.04 7.10 18.95**** Commun'n 31.57 6.04 27.55 8.14 30.04 5.83 7.20*** Alien'n 26.46 4.36 23.65 4.37 22.04 3.78 17.92**** p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001, **** p<.0001
or attendance, but the Tukey-HSD test showed that there was a highly significant difference for social adjustment where the secure group scored significantly higher than both the avoidant and the ambivalent groups (F =15.84, d.f. = 2, 309; p<.00001).
(Interestingly the Hazan & Shaver measure also showed that subjects who indicated the "secure" statement scored significantly higher on all the measures of parental attachment than those indicating the "avoidant" or "ambivalent" statements, apart from the Trust and Communication scales of the IPPA for Mothers, where the score was only significantly different from the lower of the other two. On the IPPA for Peers, the secure group was significantly higher than the other two on all but the Communication scale. See Table 12.8.)
Summary of findings regarding Hypothesis I The first hypothesis in the present research was that:
Adolescent students who are securely attached to their parents (as measured by attachment questionnaires) will show good adjustment to life and study at F.E. college (as measured by an adjustment to college questionnaire.)
The strong positive associations between all the different questionnaire measures of attachment and the composite measure of adjustment to college, AdColl27, found both by correlation coefficient and by high- and low-scoring group comparisons, gave substantial support to the hypothesis. Out of the adjustment subscales. Adjustment to Work, a self-report measure of adjustment to study, produced the highest correlations with parental attachment, all of which were highly significant beyond the p<.0001 level. Since academic or vocational work could be seen as one of the primary purposes of joining a college, this type of adjustment was also of prime importance.
Attendance adjustment, which itself was highly correlated with Adjustment to work (r = 0.4313, n=315, p <.0001) was associated with the general perception of parental attachment as measured by the PAQ, by the affective quality of the parental relationship and by the provision of emotional support. However the association between parental fostering of autonomy and attendance was not significant, perhaps
because the students who responded that parents encouraged autonomy perceived themselves as having the freedom not to attend lessons if they so chose, without feeling guilty. The Attachment relationship with Mother was positively associated with attendance, perhaps because mothers were responsible, vigilant or just enthusiastic about their son or daughter attending college. Perhaps surprisingly attachment to fathers was not similarly associated with college attendance.
Social adjustment was associated with some but not all aspects of parental attachment. The strongest associations were with attachment to father and with parents generally being seen to provide emotional support. The association between social adjustment and attachment to mothers was significant but less so. However, it was only in contrast to the highly significant associations between adjustment to work and parental attachment that the same associations for social and attendance adjustment appeared weak. Looked at individually they too provided support for the hypotheses that adolescent students who reported positive aspects of parental attachment also reported positive adjustment to life at college. The implications for this will be further discussed in the next chapter.