A Social Support Intervention and Academic Achievement in College: Does Perceived Loneliness Mediate the Relationship?

Abstract

The authors examined whether a social support intervention reduced loneliness and increased academic achievement among college freshmen. Eighty‐eight 1st‐year students randomly assigned to a social support group program reported less loneliness in the spring of their freshman year and obtained higher grade point averages in the fall of their sophomore year, compared with control participants, after controlling for demographic variables. Loneliness barely mediated the relationship between the social support intervention and academic achievement, suggesting other mechanisms by which the intervention enhanced academic performance.

Supporting First-Year Students During the Transition to Higher Education: The Importance of Quality and Source of Received Support for Student Well-Being

“…The psychological benefits of social support have been examined extensively in research with first-year students. Overall, study findings consistently show social support received from peers, family, faculty, or one's postsecondary institution during the first year of study to be linked to better levels of physical health (e.g., Hartung, Sproesser, & Renner, 2015), emotional well-being (e.g., Mattanah, Brooks, Brand, Quimby, & Ayers, 2012;Mounts, 2004), university adjustment and retention (e.g., Friedlander et al, 2007;Pancer et al, 2004), academic performance (e.g., Walton, Logel, Peach, Spencer, & Zanna, 2015), and persistence (e.g., Chang, Sharkness, Hurtado, & Newman, 2014;McGonagle et al, 2014). Additionally, the link between social support and psychological adjustment has been demonstrated in both quantitative research (e.g., Hausmann et al, 2007) and qualitative studies (Thompson, 2008) and with students across disciplines (e.g., psychology, engineering, nursing) and countries (e.g., Australia: Cornelius et al, 2016;Canada: Pancer et al, 2004;Netherlands: Pluut et al, 2015).…”

The Relationships of Coping, Negative Thinking, Life Satisfaction, Social Support, and Selected Demographics With Anxiety of Young Adult College Students

“…Other studies indicated that social support interventions enhanced students' college adjustment (Lamothe et al., ; Pratt et al., ) and thus it was recommended as a preventive intervention (Mattanah et al., ; Mattanah, Brooks, Brand, Quimby, & Ayers, ). In support of this recommendation, our estimated model suggests that adaptive coping was mostly predicted by the perceived social support.…”

Academic Leadership Courses: Catalysts for Students’ Retention and Graduation

“…The results of the initial analyses of the impact of enrollment in a leadership minor introductory course suggest that the course had positive effects on students' retention and graduation or continued withdrawal after four years of enrollment. It is important to note that the overall effects of the leadership minor are very small, suggesting there are several other variables not included in the analyses that may be more strongly associated with students' retention and graduation; for instance, several decades ago, Pascarella and Terenzini (1979) cited contact with peers and faculty as the single leading factors associated with students' retention, findings corroborated by other researchers who have discovered positive associations between college students' social support and their retention (Foley Nicpon, et al, 2006;Mattanah, Ayers, Brand, & Brooks, 2010;Mattanah, Brooks, Brand, Quimby, & Ayers, 2012). Additional factors, such as academic self-efficacy, are also strong and positive predictors of students' retention and academic success (Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001); however, these additional variables were not included in our analyses.…”