The purpose of this study was to investigate the paths and effects of causal and mediating relations among the perceived family relationships, communication with homeroom teachers, ego resilience, and school adjustment of high school students through structural equation analysis.
For this purpose, the study set the following research questions: First, do the perceived family relationships, types of communication with homeroom teachers, and ego resilience of high school students have significant effects on their school adjustment? Second, do the perceived family relationships of high school students have significant effects on their school adjustment by mediating ego resilience? Third, do the types of communication with homeroom teachers of high school students have significant effects on their school adjustment by mediating ego resilience?
In an effort to answer these questions, the study set family relationships and communication with homeroom teachers as independent variables, ego-resilience as a parameter, and school life adjustment as a dependent variable and tested them in a relationship model. Data were collected by administering a questionnaire to one thousand high school students in the tenth and eleventh grade from six high schools in Gyeong-nam Province, and 945 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The SPSS 21.0 program was used in descriptive statistical analysis of questionnaire responses, and the AMOS 21.0 program was implemented to analyze a structural equation model and test causal relations. Findings and discussions of this study led to the following conclusions:
First, family relationships and communication with homeroom teachers, individual extrinsic factors, and ego-resilience, an intrinsic factor, had both direct and indirect effects on the school adjustment of high school students via direct and indirect paths.
Second, ego resilience, an individual intrinsic factor, had greater impacts on the school adjustment of high school students than extrinsic ones such as family relationships and communication with homeroom teachers.
Third, the structural equation model demonstrated that a structural relationship model was fit among family relationships, communication with homeroom teachers, ego resilience, and school adjustment. Ego resilience turned out to have very high positive influences on school adjustment along with the direct and indirect effects demonstrated in the structural equation model
Finally these findings indicate that it is critical to review in details the integrated causal relation structure and connection of family relationships, communication with homeroom teachers, and ego resilience. Also the results of this study imply that more efforts to figure out their(family relationships, communication with homeroom teachers, and ego resilience) direct and indirect impacts on the school adjustment of high school students in order to promote the understanding of student’s school adjustment and, to find out feasible solutions of student’s adjustment problems.