The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of family resilience perceived by middle school students on their psychological well-being. The study also aimed to provide basic data for follow-up study searching for ways to increase the psyc...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of family resilience perceived by middle school students on their psychological well-being. The study also aimed to provide basic data for follow-up study searching for ways to increase the psychological well-being of adolescents based on the findings.
For those purposes, the study collected data with a questionnaire on family resilience and psychological well-being distributed to a total of 533 schools at two coed middle schools and analyzed collected data with the SPSS 18.0 program.
The study performed t-test and One-way ANOVA to examine differences among variables according to the general characteristics of the subjects, correlation analysis to examine relations among the variables, and multiple regression analysis to examine influences among the variables.
The research findings were as follows:
First, there were significant differences in family resilience perceived by middle school students according to grade, academic record, type of family, and economic strength. Significant differences were found in the belief system, one of the subfactors of family resilience, according to grade, academic record, and economic strength, in the type of organization according to grade, academic record and economic strength, and in the type of communication according to grade, academic record, type of family, and economic strength.
Second, there were significant differences in the psychological well-being of adolescents according to academic record, order of birth, and economic strength. Those who had good academic records, were first-borns, and had good economic strength tended to show high psychological well-being. Significant differences were found in individual growth, one of the subfactors of psychological well-being, according to gender, grade and academic record, in self-acceptance according to gender, grade, academic record, and economic strength, in interpersonal relationships according to gender, grade, and academic record, in autonomy according to academic record and religion, in purpose of life according to academic record, order of birth, and economic strength, and finally in environmental mastery according to grade, academic record, order of birth, and economic strength.
Third, there were positive correlations between family resilience and all of its factors and psychological well-being and all of its factors. The higher family resilience was, the higher psychological well-being became.
Fourth, general characteristics and family resilience, independent variables, had influences on psychological well-being at a level of approximately 26%. As for influential relations between family resilience and psychological well-being, the belief system and communication process of family resilience had influences on the entire psychological well-being, self-acceptance and environmental mastery. The communication process had impacts only on autonomy.
Those findings indicate that family resilience had close positive correlations with the psychological well-being of adolescents, that the belief system and communication process, two factors of family resilience, had influences on the entire psychological well-being, self-acceptance, and environmental mastery, and that the communication process, one of the factors of family resilience, had impacts on autonomy, one of the factors of psychological well-being. The findings raise a need to develop programs designed to increase family resilience and conduct follow-up study in order to help middle school students increase their psychological well-being.
Those findings led to the following proposals:
First, there is a need to develop educational programs for ninth graders, those who receive low grades, and those who are from the low-income class that turn out to have low family resilience. The comparison results on family resilience according to the type of family, a background variable related to family, reveal that there were significant results only in the entire family resilience and its subfactor, the communication process and that the family type of grandparents, parents, and children especially scored high points, which raises a need for research on families of such an immediate family type and on the factors to increase family resilience.
Second, there is a need to carry out research on groups of low psychological well-being and search for ways to increase their psychological well-being. There were especially significant differences in the entire psychological well-being and its subfactors, self-acceptance, purpose of life, and environmental mastery, according to the order of birth, a family-related background factor. Those who were first-borns scored higher points than other groups. Researchers can analyze the factors responsible for their high psychological well-being and apply them as a means of increasing the psychological well-being of other groups.
Third, the present study found close positive correlations between family resilience and psychological well-being, which implies that adolescents can enhance their psychological well-being by cultivating family resilience, which refers to the methods to cope with a family crisis and adversity and the abilities to recover from damage. There is thus a need for the development of family programs to increase family resilience by promoting a further understanding of family resilience in more follow-up research on family resilience and finding factors affecting family resilience to reinforce family resilience.
Finally, the analysis results of impacts on psychological well-being show that the belief system and communication process were the subfactors of family resilience that had direct effects on the psychological well-being of adolescents, which raises a need for research on ways to enhance family resilience and the development of educational and counseling programs based on such research. It is also needed to continue research efforts to find ways to increase the psychological well-being of adolescents by carrying out follow-up study on the various family-related factors affecting psychological well-being.