Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of family and university support in the creativity and risk taking of Master and PhD students at University of Birjand through mediation of life expectancy. Method: The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population consisted of 3064 students of MSc and Ph.D. students at University of Birjand and 340 people by using simple random sampling and based on Morgan's table were selected. To measure the variables of family and university support, the Sherbourne and Stewart (1991) questionnaire, the creativity and frugality from Vatankhah and Rezaei Moghadam's (2015) the voluntary entrepreneurship questionnaire and life expectancy from Snyder's (1991) hope questionnaire were used. Content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts. The reliability coefficients of the questionnaires were assessed by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and 0.99 for the support of the family, 0.99 for the university support, 0.60 for creativity and 0.49 for risk taking, life expectancy was 0.72. Data analysis was done at descriptive level (frequency, mean, standard deviation) and inferential level (Pearson correlation, analysis of variance, regression and structural equation modeling). Results: The results indicated that family and university support (information support) predict the creativity (Beta= 0.738) and does not predict the risk taking with regard to the P-value. Family and university support (information support) predict the life expectancy (Beta= 0.307). The life expectancy is predicting of creativity (Beta= 0.212) and risk taking (Beta= 0.400). Findings showed that life expectancy does not play a mediating role between family and university support with creativity and risk taking and the research model has a good fit. Decision making: According to the results, the family and university support (information support) has a direct and significant relationship with creativity, and (emotional support), there is a reverse and significant relationship with creativity. The family and university support do not have a significant relationship with risk taking. The results also indicate a direct and significant relationship between family and university support and life expectancy. The results also indicate a direct and significant relationship between the family and university support and life expectancy
Manuscript profile