Intellectual and Interpersonal Competence Between Siblings: The College Years

Abstract

College and university administrators are interested in the development of their students. Developmental theorists, such as Chickering (1969), provide a lens through which to view developmental task, and issues facing those tasks. One influence on development is friendship and student communities including siblings. This study expanded the available knowledge based on siblings in general, and addresses gaps in the literature by looking at sense of competence among siblings in college.

The purpose of this study is to explore the sense of competence between older and younger siblings who were both college students at the same institution during an overlapping period of time. As defined by Arthur W. Chickering (1969), sense of competence is a feeling of self-confidence about one's interpersonal and intellectual skills.

The intellectual and interpersonal competence of students were evaluated through the Sense of Competence Scale (SCS) (Janosik, Creamer & Cross, 1987). The SCS consists of 20 questions that focus on the interpersonal or interpersonal skills of the respondents. Ten items from the SCS are assigned to the interpersonal competence subscale, and 10 items from the SCS are assigned to the intellectual competence subscale. I created a web-based version of the SCS to collect data from college students who had a sibling at the same college with them simultaneously. The population for this study consists of participants who are one of at least two non-twin siblings who are enrolled at the same institution of higher education at the time of data collection. Data was collected from three institutions located in the southwest region of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The research found no statistically significant differences in the intellectual and interpersonal competency between older and younger siblings. Although the study examined a limited number of siblings, the results did not contradict the current research on sibling relationships, which suggests that older siblings demonstrate higher intellectual competence and younger siblings demonstrate higher interpersonal competence.