Mini Research Regarding College Student Loneliness and Being Homesick

Running Head: MINI RESEARCH1

Sharon R. Synan

University of West Georgia

Mini Research Regarding College Student Loneliness and Being Homesick

Topic

According to the survey data collected on data set CSS1999, 61.7% of college students indicate having experienced feelings of loneliness or being homesick occasionally or frequently. This mini-research project will try to predict if gender and frequentalcohol consumption is a statistically significant determiner for the likelihood of studentsexperiencing loneliness or being homesick.

Problem Statement

College years are recognized as transition years. With more than sixty percent of students indicating having feelings of loneliness and being homesick this feeling merits attention by colleges and universities. Knowing the causes and primary predictors of loneliness and of being homesick among college students with special focus on gender and alcohol variables would provide insight to school advisors and counselors at the college level, and would give parents and students the ability to create strategies to combat these feelings.

Review of Literature

According to Change of Address.org one of the top ten reasons students become homesick includes participation in behaviors and activities they have not participated or engaged in before (Changeaddress.org, 2011). “The college student will be confronted with abundant pressures related to social situations -- sex, drugs, alcohol. With respect to academics, students today are feeling increasing pressure to know what they want to do, pick a career path, and plan for their future. This pressure is causing unfortunate substance abuse, anxiety and even depression”(Shatkin, 2010).Although lay assumptions may lead one to believe that females are more likely to experience homesickness research conducted by Stroebe, Tony, Hewstone & Willis (2002) does not support this theory.

Research Questions

What is the frequency of college students who indicate being occasionally or frequently lonely or homesick on the CSS 1999 survey?
What is the expected responseindicated in regards to being lonely or homesick for a female student who frequently drinks alcohol?

Variables

For this research I chose “Act in Part Year: Been lonely or homesick” as my dependent variable. The values of this variable include; 1= Not at all, 2 = Occasionally and 3 = Frequently. I used two independent variables to run inferential analysis. The first independent variable I used was sex with 1 = male and 2 = female. I computed a new variable by combining two variables from the data set. The original two variables were “drank beer” and “drank wine or liquor”. The newly computed variable was labeled “drank alcohol”. The values were re-computed with 2 = Not at all and 6 = Frequently.

Data Analysis

I chose to run a multiple linear regression because this statistical analysis would allow me to see the effects of gender and the effects of alcohol consumption on the likelihood of indicating the student has experienced loneliness or been homesick. In order to run this analysis I had to begin by screening the variables. I wanted to combine the variables “drank beer” and “drank wine, liquor”. In order to do this I ran a reliability scale on the two variables. The Cronbach’s Alpha score was 0.843 which is a high reliability (see Table A1). I then recomputed those two variables into a single variable with values of 2 = Not at all and 6 = Frequently.

I ran a simple descriptive to answer the first research question regarding the frequency of students who responded having been lonely or homesick either occasionally or frequently (see Table A2). Showing the frequency at 61.7% by combining occasionally and frequently, this gave me the starting point for the problem statement and the need to investigate the predictors.

Finally, I ran a multiple linear regression as stated above (see Tables A3, A4 and A5). This gave me the model summary information including the , my ANOVA, and the coefficients I would need to calculate the equations.

Results

A multiple linear regression was calculated to predict students who have been lonely or homesick based on their gender and frequency of alcohol consumption. A significant regression was found (F, (2, 23757) = 422.133, p0.01), with an = 0.034.

Results suggest that experiencing loneliness or being homesick was equal to 1.369 + 0.22(female) – 0.13(drank alcohol frequently). The expected experience of loneliness or being homesick for a female student who frequently drinks alcohol would be 1.029. While all variables were statistically significant the relatively small percentage of variance explained by these factors (3.4%) limits practical implications. However, the variance explained by sex identity B = 0.182 is four times as likely to affect loneliness and being homesick as the variance explained by frequent alcohol consumption which isB = -0.27.

Discussion

I learned from this analysis that most freshmen experience feelings of loneliness and of being homesick. Gender has a minimal impact as a predictor but it might interesting to further investigate the attitudes towards male participants and whether they are willing to self-reveal their feelings toward loneliness and being homesick on a survey such as the one analyzed here. Alcohol consumption had even less of an effect and actually seemed to go the opposite direction. One interesting point is related to alcohol assumption. Although not documented for the purposes of this paper I had hypothesized that students who frequently consumed alcohol would experience a greater likelihood to be lonely or to be homesick. When re-calculating the linear regression equations I found that the opposite was true. Although the difference was not great for both males and females the indication of not feeling lonely and not being homesick was greater. It would be interesting to investigate further and discover how social relationships correlate with frequent alcohol consumption relate.

References

Altschuler, GC. College prep: Adapting to college life in an era of heightened stress. New York Times. August 6, 2000; Education Life supplement: 12.

Change of Address, 2011. Top ten reasons college freshmen get homesick. Retrieved on 11/19/2011. freshman-get-homesick/

Shatkin, J. (2010). Transition to college: Separation and change for parents and students.

NYU Child Study Center. Retrieved on 11/19/2011 ents

Stroebe, M., Tony, v. V., Hewstone, M., & Willis, H. (2002). Homesickness among students in two cultures: Antecedents and consequences. British Journal of Psychology, 93(00071269), 147-68. Retrieved from

Appendix

Table A1

Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha / Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items / N of Items
.839 / .843 / 2

Table A2Frequency of alcohol use Question 1

Frequently = 6.6%Occasionally = 55.1% Total= 61.7%

Act in Part Year: Been lonely or homesick
Frequency / Percent / Valid Percent / Cumulative Percent
Valid / Not at all / 9059 / 37.4 / 37.7 / 37.7
Occasionally / 13356 / 55.1 / 55.6 / 93.3
Frequently / 1597 / 6.6 / 6.7 / 100.0
Total / 24012 / 99.1 / 100.0
Missing / System / 216 / .9
Total / 24228 / 100.0

Table A3

Model Summaryb
Model / R / R Square / Adjusted R Square / Std. Error of the Estimate
1 / .185a / .034 / .034 / .579
a. Predictors: (Constant), Drank Alcohol, Your sex:
b. Dependent Variable: Act in Part Year: Been lonely or homesick

Table A4

ANOVAb
Model / Sum of Squares / df / Mean Square / F / Sig.
1 / Regression / 283.125 / 2 / 141.562 / 422.133 / .000a
Residual / 7966.911 / 23757 / .335
Total / 8250.036 / 23759
a. Predictors: (Constant), Drank Alcohol, Your sex:
b. Dependent Variable: Act in Part Year: Been lonely or homesick

Table A5

Coefficientsa
Model / Unstandardized Coefficients / Standardized Coefficients / t / Sig.
B / Std. Error / Beta
1 / (Constant) / 1.369 / .017 / 79.649 / .000
Your sex: / .222 / .008 / .182 / 28.453 / .000
Drank Alcohol / -.013 / .003 / -.027 / -4.159 / .000
a. Dependent Variable: Act in Part Year: Been lonely or homesick