A Study of Factors Affecting of Premarital Friendship Formation between Boys and Girls from the Perspective of Students

This descriptive study aimed to examine factors shaping premarital friendship between boys and girls students. The target population included all students (N=2960) of Education Faculty of Islamic Azad University (Marvdasht). A total of 219 students were sampled using cluster sampling method. Research instrument was a 30-item questionnaire developed by the researchers employing Principal Component Analysis tapping into individual, family, and social components. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between two means (out of three) and that individual, family and social factors, in order of strength, affected the formulation of premarital friendship. As regards the demographic characteristics, the analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between the aforementioned factors and gender, employment status, and marital status of the respondents.