The Nature of Mother’s Employment on Nurturing Campus Persistence among Undergraduate Students

Objective: The study aims to empirically test the relationship between types of campus adaptations across students’ mothers’ level of nature of occupation among engineering undergraduate B. Tech students pursuing a four-year study at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s) and National Institutes of Technology (NIT’s) in India.

Method: The Multivariate Analysis of Variance (Manova) test was run with SPSS vs. 21 to compare the student’s campus adaptations of IIT’s and NIT’s by students’ mothers’ level of occupation. Multistage random sampling with n = 1420 students were selected comprising of employed at government (n = 172), employed at private (n =141), own a business (n = 71) employed as unskilled labourer (n = 10), farmer (n = 10), retired from government service or pensioner (n = 06), not alive (n = 03), unemployed (n = 107).

Result: In the academic adaptation, students’ mothers’ who were employed by the government, owned a business, employed as unskilled labourer and pursued farming had positive outcome while students’ whose mothers’ were employed at private, retired from government service, not alive and unemployed had negative outcomes. In social adaptation students’ whose mothers’ were employed by the government, owned a business, retired from government service and unemployed had positive outcomes while students’ whose mothers’ were employed at private, employed as an unskilled labourer, pursued farming and not alive had negative outcomes. In physical - psychological adaptation, students’ mothers’ who owned a business, not alive and unemployed had positive outcomes while student’s mothers’ employed at the government, employed at private, employed as an unskilled labourer, pursued farming and retired from government service had negative outcomes. In the institutional adaptation, students’ mothers’ employed at the government, employed at private own a business, employed as an unskilled labourer, retired from government service and not alive had positive outcomes and students whose mothers’ were farmers and unemployed had negative outcomes.

Conclusion: Campus adaptations do vary across student’s mother’s level of occupation influencing student’s experiences at IIT’s and NIT’s.