The aim of this study is to measure the perceived parental attitudes of Turkish college students towards dating and premarital sexual behavior and to examine how these attitudes differ with respect to gender of the students and parental marital status. The participants of the present study were 160 college students. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire, with two scales, which were measuring perceived parental attitudes toward dating behavior and perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior.
Results indicated that, both gender of students and parental divorce affect students&rsquo / perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior / with the use of Wilk&rsquo / s criterion, both of the DVs were significantly affected both by gender F(2,155) = 14.85, p < / .01 and parental divorce F(2,155) = 23.42, p < / .01, and by their interaction F(2,155)= 10.84, p< / .01. There was a significant gender difference about perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior / male students perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as more permissive toward premarital sexual behavior, but female students perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as less permissive toward premarital sexual behavior. However, in terms of parental attitudes toward dating, there was no significant difference due to gender. There was also a significant difference in perceived parental attitudes in terms of parental marital status with respect to dating and premarital sexual behavior. Children of divorced parents perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes in a more permissive way, however children whose parents are still married perceived their parents&rsquo / attitudes as less permissive, toward both dating and premarital sexual behaviors.
The interaction of gender and parental marital status were both significant due to perceived parental attitudes toward dating behavior F(1,155)= 12.41, p< / .01 and due to perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behavior F(1,155)= 19.80, p< / .01. In terms of perceived parental attitudes toward dating, females whose parents are divorced tend to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married, whereas males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ from the males whose parents are married. Moreover, males whose parents are married tended to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married toward dating behavior, whereas females and males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ. In terms of perceived parental attitudes toward premarital sexuality, both females and males whose parents are divorced tend to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females and males whose parents are married, however the difference between females whose parents are divorced vs. married is significantly larger than the difference among the males whose parents are divorced vs. married. Moreover, males whose parents are married tended to perceive parental attitudes significantly more permissive than females whose parents are married toward premarital sexual behavior, whereas females and males whose parents are divorced did not significantly differ.
Department of the student, city mostly lived in, father education, mother education, and number of siblings of the student were not found to be correlated with the perceived parental attitudes of college students toward dating and premarital sexual behavior. The results of the present study are discussed in the light of the literature, and limitations and future suggestions are presented.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12606278/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 July 2005 |
| Creators | Sahin, Basak |
| Contributors | Oner - Ozkan, Bengi |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for METU campus |
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