Do Psychosocial and Study Skill Factors Predict College Outcomes? A Meta-Analysis

Steven B. Robbins, Kristy Lauver,

Huy Le and Daniel Davis, Ronelle Langley, & Aaron Carlstrom

Presented by Andriette Vaughn

Radford University

Purpose

• To determine if psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes– Current national debate over what constructs to

use when choosing college applicants• Are standardized achievement and/or high school

GPA better predictors of college outcomes?

Literature Review• 1984 - 2004• Methods

– Electronic Sources• PsycINFO• Educational Resources Information Center

– Manual Search (1991-2000)• Journal of Counseling Psychology• Journal of Counseling and Development• Research in Higher Education• Journal of Higher Education• Sources sited in the reference sections of literature reviews, articles, and

studies from prominent sources

Literature Review

• Studies– 408 were found

– 109 were used• 299 were excluded due to data that was unusable and/or a

population that did not coincide with our population of interest

Issues to Consider

• What constitutes college outcome?– Performance

• Class or subject matter achievement, typically measured by GPA

– Persistence • Retention: length of time a student remains enrolled

in an institution.

• Lack of clearly defined and adequately measured predictors

Dependent Measures• Achievement Motivation

• Academic Goals

• Institutional Commitment

• Perceived Social Support

• Social Involvement

• Academic Self-efficacy

• General Self-concept

• Academic-related Skills

Studies to Include

• Included both a measure of the PSF constructs and an outcome measure of college success

• Limited to studies examining full-time students enrolled at a 4-year, higher education institution in the United States

ResultsRetention 90%

ConfidenceInterval (r)

90%ConfidenceInterval (ρ)

90%Credibility

IntervalPredictor K N r Lower Upper ρ Lower Upper Lower Upper % var.

acct.AchievementMotivation

7 3,208 .105 .042 .168 .066 .042 .168 -.083 .214 28.03

AcademicGoals

33 20,012 .210 .160 .261 .340 .270 .410 -.062 .742 6.60

InstitutionalCommitment

28 20,741 .204 .150 .258 .262 .192 .331 -.105 .628 4.60

SocialSupport

26 11,624 .199 .142 .255 .257 .193 .321 -.068 .583 7.39

SocialInvolvement

36 26,263 .166 .132 .201 .216 .183 .249 .037 .657 9.60

AcademicSelf-efficacy

6 6,930 .257 .243 .272 .359 .354 .363 .347 .370 95.50

General Self-concept

6 4,240 .059 .007 .109 .050 -.001 .101 -.076 .175 17.79

AcademicRelated Skills

8 1,627 .298 .099 .497 .366 .126 .606 -.065 .797 5.08

ResultsGPA 90%

ConfidenceInterval (r)

90%ConfidenceInterval (ρ)

90%Credibility

IntervalPredictor K N r Lower Upper ρ Lower Upper Lower Upper % var.

acct.AchievementMotivation

17 9,330 .257 .221 .292 .303 .263 .344 .136 .471 11.64

AcademicGoals

34 17,575 .155 .135 .175 .179 .157 .201 .052 .306 20.56

InstitutionalCommitment

11 5,775 .108 .075 .141 .120 .088 .151 .016 .223 25.75

SocialSupport

33 12,366 .096 .075 .118 .109 .087 .130 -.015 .232 27.13

SocialInvolvement

33 15,955 .124 .098 .150 .141 .114 .168 -.015 .297 14.87

AcademicSelf-efficacy

18 9,598 .378 .342 .413 .496 .444 .548 .275 .717 7.67

General Self-concept

21 9,621 .037 .006 .068 .046 .012 .080 -.109 .201 17.76

AcademicRelated Skills

33 16,282 .129 .098 .161 .159 .121 .197 .035 .283 23.86

Potential Moderators• Types of measures used; Diversity of scales supposedly

measuring the same construct

• College Adjustment Process

• Institutional size

• Institutional differences

• Literature ranges across many psychological and educational content domains

• Differences in sample characteristics (I.e. gender, race, background, individual differences, seniors vs. first years, etc)

Conclusion• Measures of psychosocial and study skill factor

constructs are correlated with retention as a measure of college success.

• Measures are also correlated with with GPA across most (90%) of situations

• Psychosocial and study skill factors are shown to be better predictors of college outcomes than SES, standardized achievement, and high school GPA,

• There is a need to incorporate Psychosocial and study skill factors into the prediction of college outcome