Parenting styles and college students' personal agency

Abstract

Parenting styles exercise great influence on the development of personal identity formation (Luyckx, Soenens, Goossens, & Vansteenkiste, 2007). This non random pilot study aimed to examine the relationship between parenting styles and a student's sense of personal agency. Participants included 43 students from a Midwestern university. It was hypothesized that students of the Authoritative parenting style would endorse a higher sense of independence, self-esteem, and confidence, all reflective of personal agency. A small sample size in the Authoritarian and Permissive parenting styles resulted in analyzing responses in the Authoritative style only. Statistical analyses included frequencies, mean comparisons, correlations, and a reliability analysis. Students who identified their caregiver's parenting style as Authoritative endorsed a high sense of independence, self-esteem, and confidence. These findings were supported in the literature. Implications for practitioners include the promotion of Authoritative parenting in parent education classes. It is recommended that a larger and random sample be used in future research to be able to compare the three parenting styles in the development of personal agency