Parent-Child Attachment as A Correlate of Social Skills and Academic Self-Efficacy

Background: Parent-child attachment is the deep and enduring bond between an infant and his or her caregiver, expressing in attachment behaviours. Objective: To ascertain the relationship between parent-child attachment, social skills and academic self-efficacy among university undergraduates in the South-east, Nigeria. Methods: A mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative methods) research design was used. An interview schedule and a well-structured questionnaire were administered to a sample of 292 undergraduates. Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 25 was used for data analysis. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to draw 292 undergraduates using the following instruments: parent-child attachment questionnaire (14), academic self-efficacy scale (23) and social skills questionnaire (28). The reliability of the instruments was established to ascertain the internal consistency using Cronbach Alpha which yielded 0.82, 0.77 and 0.89 respectively. Copies of the questionnaires were administered to the respondents by the researchers with the help of research assistants. The data collected from research objectives were analysed using Pearson’s Product Moment correlation coefficient statistics (r) mean and standard deviation, while the null hypotheses were tested using probability value and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance.