Exploring Parental Factors, Adjustment, and
Academic Achievement Among White and Hispanic College Students
Ani Yazedjian Michelle L. Toews Alice Navarro

The purpose of this study was to examine whether college adjustment mediated the relationship between parental factors, such as parental attachment, parental education, and parental expectations, and academic achievement among White and Hispanic first-year college students. We found that adjustment mediated the relationship between parental factors—quality of the parental relationship and parental education—and GPA for White students. However, none of the parental factors explained GPA for Hispanic students. These findings support previous research asserting that correlates of academic achievement might vary across ethnic groups.
Adjusting to college is a major transition in a young adult’s life. Unfortunately, a large percentage of students are unsuccessful in navigating this transition. In fact, the majority of students who depart their initial institution often leave during their first 2 years (ACT, 2002). Tinto (1975) argued that these departures result from a lack of integration into the college environment and that the first year is particularly critical because it is during this time that students are initially learning to negotiate the challenges of adjusting to a new environment. In support of this argument, recent researchers have found that students who withdraw often do so for personal reasons such as a lack of adjustment to the college environment (Kalsner & Pistole, 2003; Kerr, Johnson, Gans, & Krumrine, 2004). However, more research is needed to examine what variables predict college adjustment, especially during the first year (Grant-Vallone, Reid, Umali, & Pohlert, 2003-2004). Ani Yazedjian is Assistant Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences; Michelle L. Toews is Associate