Easing the Transition to College: Understanding the Mediating Factors of Trait Anxiety

Discussion

As mentioned above the hypothesized model did not perform as well as the full model. The paths that were hypothesized to be significant but were not include the paths from marital status to loneliness, gender to social desirability, and gender to stress. Paths that were significant but were not hypothesized include the paths of age to social desirability, age to stress, total social support to marital status, gender to family separation, gender to depression, group to family separation, marital status to family separation, social desirability to trait anxiety, and stress to trait anxiety.

When all the significant predictors from the full model are included in the trimmed model family separation is not significantly related to trait anxiety in the trimmed model, but is significantly relate to trait anxiety in the hypothesized model. This is most likely due to family separation being collinear with other predictors in the trimmed model as they relate to trait anxiety, however, in the hypothesized model the collinear predictors are removed allowing family separation to significantly contribute to the model. The predictor that contributed the most to trait anxiety in all three models was depression. This is not surprising due to the high rate of comorbidity between depression and anxiety (Aina & Susman, 2006).

Contrary to the findings of Matud (2004), no difference in stress was found between males and females. A possible explanation as to why this discrepancy in results occurred may be due to the measures that were used to record stress. In Matud’s study the Life Event Stressful Success Questionnaire (LESSQ) designed by Roger and Meadows, Chronic Stress Questionnaire designed by Matud, and Minor Daily Stressor Questionnaire also designed by Matud were used to measure different aspects of stress. In the current study, The Life Experiences Survey (LES) designed by Sarason, Johnson, & Siegel was used to measure stress. Also, no gender differences were found in social desirability. Impression management differences, between males and females, do not directly transfer over to social desirability. Gender differences in depression have been found in previous literature (Parker & Brotchie, 2010), however it was not predicted in this model because it was expected to be collinear with other variables (stress, social desirability, and total social support) and was expected to not be significantly related. Similar to gender and depression, it was expected that stress and social desirability would be collinear other variable in the model as they relate to trait anxiety, thus not contribute uniquely to the model (those other variables being loneliness and depression).

It is worth mentioning a path that was significant but in the opposite direction that was expected. The path of group and family separation indicates a significantly negative relationship between those two variables. It was expected that those who were traditional students would have been separated from their family for a less amount of time than those that are nontraditional students. One possible explanation to this unexpected result is that those who are nontraditional students answered the question, “How long have you been separated from your family?” differently than those who are traditional students. Nontraditional students would have had the time to start a family of their own, so in answering the question of how long they have been separated from their family they would have answered “0, no time away from family.”

Total social support would seem to be one of the most important variables in the model that does not directly affect trait anxiety. Trait anxiety is significantly related to stress, loneliness, and depression. Stress directly affects trait anxiety, as well as indirectly trait anxiety via loneliness and depression. Several of the variables are unable to be changed by intervention efforts such as, age, group, family separation, gender, and to an extent marital status. However, several variable that are directly and indirectly have the possibility of being changed for the better and ultimately lower trait anxiety by focusing on the mediating variables, such variables would include total social support, social desirability, stress, loneliness and depression (marital status may also be included with this group of variables do the persons chose to stay or leave a relationship). In the developmental of an intervention for trait anxiety social support would be a recommended place to begin due to its relationship with variable that indirectly and directly affect trait anxiety, and the ability for those variables to be changed. Social support is known to lessen the effects of stress, be largely related to depression such that those that have less social support tend to be more depressed, and has a large role in overall mental health (Turner & Brown, 2010)

Future research should focus on the unique contributions that the different subscales of social support (family, friend, and significant other social support) have on the relationship between predictors and trait anxiety. A major component of this study was separation of traditional students from non-traditional students. It is possible that the amounts of the different kinds of social support could vary between the groups such that traditional students would have greater friend and family social support, Spitzer (2000) found that social support as a whole did not differ between traditional students and nontraditional students. This does not mean that the subscales of social support do not differ between traditional and nontraditional students, and as a result significantly contribute to trait anxiety directly and indirectly in different ways from each other.

Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion References Full Path Model Hypothesized Path Model Reduced Path Model Correlation Table