Date of Award

8-1-1980

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Counseling Psychology & Community Services

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships among family structure, family environment, and satisfaction with college. Items taken from Minuchin’s descriptions of Enmeshed and Disengaged family behaviors were compiled and placed in questionnaire form along with the Family Environment scale of the Minnesota Counseling Inventory. The Family Environment scale was chosen in this study as a way of assessing concurrent validity for the newly selected scale items, which comprised the Enmeshed and Disengaged scales. These three family scales and a modified form of the Hoppock Job Satisfaction Blank for assessing college student satisfaction were administered to seventy-one female and twenty-five male college students.

The results of the study were reported in three parts. First, the results of the statistical analysis of the Enmeshed and Disengaged scales were reported. When the original pool of 43 items on the Enmeshed and Disengaged scales were compared with the Family Relations scale, an r of .57 was obtained between the Enmeshed scale and the Family Relations scale and an r of .75 was obtained between the Disengaged scale and the Family Relations scale. Second, by improving the homogeneity of the scales with internal consistency statistics the original item pool was reduced from 43 items to two final scales which contained 12 Enmeshed items and 10 Disengaged items. However, after eliminations of items, the correlations between the Family Relations scale and both the Enmeshed and Disengaged scales were lower. This finding was seen as a reflection of the decreased range in scores on the smaller scales.

Finally, stepwise regression analysis was employed to assess the relationship between family environment and satisfaction with college. Scores on the Enmeshed, Disengaged and Family Relations scales, marital status, age, status of parents, academic major, and class ranking were used as predictors of the criterion which was the total satisfaction score on the modified Hoppock Job Satisfaction Blank for College Students. The results indicated that a significant relationship existed between the nine predictors and the criterion variable (F = 2.197, p. <.05). However, examination of the contribution each variable made in the regression equation indicated that no relationship existed between college satisfaction and scores on the Enmeshed scale, Disengaged scale and the Family Relations scale.

The general conclusions of the study were that the family distinctions proposed by Minuchin are presently of limited usefulness when applied to a college population, and that no relationship exists among the three measures of family environment and satisfaction with college.

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