Familial Impact on Student Success

Volume 1, No. 1
Online ISSN: 3071-0898

© The authors. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons 4.0 License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Familial Impact on Student Success

CONFERENCE ABSTRACT

Emma Davisᵃ* and Jennifer Highᵇ⁺

ᵃWhitehurst Family Honors Program, Barton College, Wilson, NC, USA
ᵇStudent Health Services, Barton College, Wilson, NC, USA
*Student author, ⁺Faculty mentor

CITATION

Davis, Emma; & High, Jennifer. (2026). Familial impact on student success [Conference abstract]. Barton Journal, 1(1), 186–187. https://bartonjournal.org/vol-1-no-1/2026-cat4-article-no-033

Abstract

There are never two students who come from the same family background, so students who arrive at university or college have different preconceived ways to approach social and academic success. This study examined the impact of familial circumstances, upbringing, and home life on students’ overall success on a college campus. After a literature review of contemporary researchers’ findings, academic success, social success, and familial impact were defined as key terms to understand how these factors fit together. To study familial impact on student success, a survey was conducted among students at a small, liberal arts school with a student population of about one thousand. The survey included questions about their home life, academic success, and social success on campus; using long-form answers, pertaining to qualitative results, and short-form answers, pertaining to quantitative results. Four groups of student data show that certain populations display a stronger or weaker effect on a student’s academic and social success due to familial impact. Qualitatively, data also show how students feel about their academic and social success, as well as how they feel about their home life. Data collected from this project will help higher education faculty and administrators better understand how best to help students succeed on a college campus.

Keywords: familial impact, social success, academic success

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