A Study Of The Relationship Between College Students' Sense Of Family Obligations, Parents' Expectations And Future Orientation

Family obligation refers to a collection of attitudes and behaviors related to the provision of assistance, respect and support to family members. It is a type of familial connections. In the context of collectivism in China, the bond between individual and his family has been highly valued. As a result,the influence from family on people’s future orientation is very important. So the study aimed to explore the characteristics of university students’ family obligation and the contribution of family obligation,parental expectation to individual’s future orientation.First of all, family obligation questionnaire was revised to measure the family obligation in China. The scale consisted of three dimensions: current assistance,respect for family and future support. Confirmatory factor analysis found a good fit with the EFA results. The reliability, validation and other psychometrics indexes were satisfactory.Second, Chinese version of family obligation questionnaire, parental expectation questionnaire, and future orientation questionnaire of adolescents were administered to 1046 Chinese students from university to explore the relationships among parental expectations, family obligation and future orientation. The results were as follows:(1) University students showed a stronger sense of family obligation. Female had higher family obligation than male. First-year undergraduate students had the strongest sense of family obligation, and possessed higher expectations for both respect for family and placed more importance upon future support. Students in leading universities possessed higher expectations for both current assistance and placed more importance upon respect for family than those in the ordinary universities.The students of Arts possessed higher expectations for respect for family than those of Sciences. Rural students possessed higher expectations for future support to their families than urban ones. Students whose fathers had lower education level embraced higher future support than students with high-educated father. Students whose mothers had higher education level embraced higher current assistance than students with less-educated mother.(2) University students’ future orientation degree was higher. Family obligation was significantly correlated with future orientation. Family obligation in current assistance and respect for family dimension could predict future orientation positively.(3) Parental expectation of the students was medium. Parental expectation was significantly correlated with future orientation. Parental expectation in personal maturity could predict future orientation positively.(4) Current assistance played a positive moderate role in relationship between parental expectation in academic achievement and future orientation. Respect for family played a negative moderate role in relationship between parental expectation in academic achievement and future orientation.Based on these, the conclusions were as follows:(1) Chinese version of family obligation questionnaire had good reliability and validity, which can be used as effective tool to examine family obligation.(2) In general, university students possessed relatively strong values of family obligation, but the development of it was not balanced.(3) Current assistance and respect for family played a moderate role in relationship between parental expectation in academic achievement and future orientation.