Thesis
Self-determination orientation: Psychometric assessment of the adapted perceptions of parents scale for college students
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
05/2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004076
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125356
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to evaluate the internal structure of an adapted version of the perceptions of parents scale for college students (POPS-College). The scale was created by self-determination theory (SDT) researchers in the early 1990s to measure maternal and paternal autonomy support and involvement, as perceived by school-aged children. It was later adapted for the college student population and has been flexibly used in research, primarily in adolescent samples, without undergoing a psychometric assessment with a college student sample. The POPS-College was designed to measure maternal and paternal autonomy support, involvement, and warmth. This study is the first to evaluate the internal structure of the involvement and warmth subscale items with a college student sample and to evaluate the properties of the scale in a new context: the parent whom the college student feels closest to. This is important because this prompt does not limit perceptions of autonomy supportive, involved, and warm parenting to the context of either mothers or fathers, but any parent or guardian the student feels a connection to. Parents, broadly, play an important role in the development of young adults even when young adult children are no longer living at home with their parent. Furthermore, based in SDT, autonomy-supportive, warm and involved parenting is important to facilitate the development of autonomy, competence, relatedness, and a sense of intrinsic motivation - factors theoretically and empirically established as protective and linked to positive developmental, psychological and academic outcomes among college students. Thus, it is important to have valid and reliable measures of parenting, as perceived by students, to accurately understand supportive mechanisms of college student development. I conducted a series of factor analyses and reconstructed the adapted POPS-College to more validly and reliability measure autonomy-supportive parenting and warm parental involvement. This was replicated and invariant across time, indicating stability and strong utility of the newly structured scale for college students. This has implications for subsequent research, informing parenting practices, and SDT.
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Details
- Title
- Self-determination orientation
- Creators
- Kyle Thomas Murphy
- Contributors
- Laura Griner Hill (Advisor) - Washington State University, Office of the Provost
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Human Development
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Identifiers
- 99900890789001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis