The collective group of resources that are accessible to an individual because of people within his/her social network is known as social capital. Social capital becomes more valuable when an individual sees that it can help with goal achievement. This is especially true with college-aged students who are deciding on academic major, career path and if should persist or dropout. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of social network characteristics on the perceived social capital value (SCV) and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) among freshman college students enrolled at a research university.
This present study examined how a students social network characteristics are related to their perceived SCV and CDMSE. The researcher measured bonding network size, bridging network size, overall network size, multiplex network size, network density and network homophily as the social network characteristics of interest. The Name Generator and the short-form of the Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy scale (CDMSE-SF) were administered to 122 freshman students who resided in three different on-campus living communities (traditional, career exploration residential college and agriculture residential college) to measure their perceived social network characteristics, perceived SCV and CDMSE. ANOVA tests were performed to compare the three on-campus communities students perceived social network characteristics, SCV and CDMSE. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine if SCV mediates perceived social network characteristics prediction of CDMSE.
Results indicated that there are no differences in on-campus communities students perception of social network characteristics, SCV and CDMSE. Also, results show that there is little to no relationship between SCV or social network characteristics and CDMSE. However, the researcher did find that freshman college students derive their perceptions of their social capital value from networks that are more hemophilic (r = 0. 186, p < 0.05) and smaller, more emotionally supportive social bonding networks (r = 0.216, p < 0.05). The researcher concludes that social network training and coaching should be delivered to freshman college students from their first semester through their graduation to properly develop a well-rounded social network that can provide emotional/social support as well as having access to new information to provide career advantage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-07102017-141958 |
| Date | 18 July 2017 |
| Creators | Autin, Troy |
| Contributors | Johnson, Martin, Kennedy, Eugene, Burnett, Michael, McCarter, Kevin S, Verma, Satish |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07102017-141958/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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