Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

This study investigated friend influence on school engagement in a sample of 160 stable same-sex friendship dyads (94 female dyads and 66 male dyads) from five senior high schools and four vocational schools in a small city in central Finland. Longitudinal data were collected during the first and second years of upper secondary school, approximately one year apart, and self-reports were available from both members of each friendship dyad. The framework of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kenny, Kashy & Cook, 2006) was used to estimate friend influence on school engagement in a model that did not distinguish same-sex friends, in a direct-effects model that distinguished friends based on relative levels of school burnout, and in a multiple-group model for distinguishable friends that investigated perceptions of maternal affection as a moderator of friend influence. Results suggest that the higher burnout partner in a friendship dyad influenced a decline in the lower burnout partner's school engagement only when the lower burnout partner perceived low maternal affection. When the lower burnout partner perceived high maternal affection, there was no evidence of negative influence by a higher burnout partner. Patterns of influence did not vary as a function of sex or school track. The importance of distinguishing friends on a theoretically and statistically meaningful basis to learn who influences whom, and of investigating indirect effects models when studying friend influence is also discussed.

Extent

xiii, 102 p. : ill.

Comments

by Donna Marion.|Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Donna Marion.

Identifier

FADT3332721

Format

pdf

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