Abstract:

The university environment places a number of specific requirements on students which may result in many negative implications (stress, academic failure, isolation, depression, health problems, etc.) One of the factors that seem protective in this context is social support (e.g. Awang, Kutty, & Ahmad, 2014; Hefner & Eisenberg, 2009). Social support refers to the social and psychological support an individual receives in his/her environment. It can also be defined as the existence and reception of support (Barrera & Baca, 1991; Hefner & Eisenberg, 2009). The objective of the present paper is to analyse the potential differences in the areas of received social support among university students in relation to gender and form of study. The paper also focuses on the degree of received social support among intact students and students with specific needs. The research method was the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB, Barrera, Sandler, & Ramsay), the purpose of which is to assess received social support by means of the following factors: directive and non-directive support, emotional support, and material support. The reliability of the questionnaire reaches an acceptable level of ω = 0.84 (Barrera & Baca, 1990). The research sample comprised 710 university students (mean age = 22.61, SD = 4.173, range 19-55 years) of whom 116 were male (mean age = 23.34, SD = 3.578) and 594 were female (mean age = 22.47, SD = 4.268). As far as form of study is concerned, a total of 631 full-time and 79 part-time students were involved. The results suggest that women have a higher degree of social support compared with men. Similar results were achieved by women also in the factor of emotional support and material support. A difference was observed between full-time and part-time students in the factor of directive and non-directive support, in which full-time students achieved a higher degree of social support. No relevant differences were observed in the remaining scales. An interesting result is that no significant difference was observed between students with special educational needs and intact students in received social support. The implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

Keywords:

Social support, university students.