Date of Award

Fall 12-11-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Department

Psychology

College

College of Science

First Advisor

Andrew M Terranova

Abstract/Description

For years, social scientists have pondered the impacts of a parental divorce on the students’ academic performance, as well as their attachment style (Fomby, 2010). In the current study, it is hypothesized that students who experience a parental divorce will perform lower on academic performance and higher on the insecure attachment styles than students whose parents are still intact or remarried. Participants were 73 college students, ages ranging in age from 18-29. More than half of the study consisted of student’s ages 18-19 years. 65% of students who participated were female, and an overwhelming majority of participants were white, with nearly 80%. Non-LatinX students also comprised a large part of the study, this number also being over 80%. Students answered items from the Perceived Academic Performance Scale (Verner-Filion & Vallerand 2016). As well as the Attachment Styles Questionnaire (Verbeke, Bagozzi, & van den Berg 2014). The results were analyzed using several one-way ANOVAs. Results indicated no significant findings, with students in all three groups (divorced, remarried, intact) performing similarly on academic performance as well as similarly on attachment styles. Future directions for similar studies could perhaps be more inclusive of divorce timing, pre-divorce conditions, socioeconomic status of the parent, quality of the union being dissolved and post-divorce environment, as the research has indicated these elements are most critical.

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