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A Structural Equation Model of Contributing Factors to Adolescent Social Interest

The focus of the present study was to test through SEM the relationships between family influences (FI) and school influences (SI) on factors hypothesized to be associated with adolescent social interest: school belonging (SB), extracurricular participation (EP), and peer/romantic involvement (PRI). The final model consisted of FI and SI that contributed to the expression of adolescent social interest. FI included parental communication and parental caring. SI consisted of teacher fairness. SB consisted of a child's self-reported feelings of belonging at school, EP included self-reported involvement in sports or academic clubs, and PRI consisted of self-reported desire for romantic involvement or desire for participation with others. The proposed model suggested that FI contributed significantly to self-reported SB, EP, and PRI. Additionally, it was hypothesized that SI would contribute significantly to SB and EP, but not to PRI. The data used in the current study were part of an existing data set collected as part of the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health. The total sample size for the present study was 2,561 male and female adolescents aged 12-19 years. The data consisted of adolescent and parent self-report information. Results suggested a significant relationship between FI and self-reported SB and PRI. As expected, a significant relationship existed between SI and SB. Also as expected, no significant relationship existed between SI and PRI. Neither the relationship between FI and EP nor SI and EP were significant. When analyzed separately, a significant relationship existed between SB and PRI; however, no significant relationship was found between SB and EP. Results also indicated several of the fit indices, including the average off-diagonal absolute standardized residual, the comparative fit index (CFI), and the Bentler-Bonett non-normed fit index (BBNFI), were a low to moderate fit. However, the final model was highly skewed and the model chi-square and chi-square were both exceptionally high, indicating the model appeared to moderately fit the data, but the need for further refinement is clear.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2213
Date08 1900
CreatorsCraig, Stephen E.
ContributorsHolden, Janice Miner, Lane, Timothy, Harris, Henry L., Silverthorn, Persephanie
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Copyright, Craig, Stephen E., Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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