Native Hawaiian student success in the first-year: the impact of college programs and practices

2019-02-20This study examines the relationship between Native Hawaiian student participation in first-year college programs and student success measures. Specifically, the study assesses whether participation in a first-year experience program at a community college campus was significantly associated with increases in students’ persistence, achievement, and completion, particularly among Native Hawaiians. Applying Astin’s (1993) input-environment-outcome model and leveraging archival data of 1,106 first-time, classified undergraduates from Fall 2014 to Fall 2016, bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted on the entire eligible campus population, as well as a subset of Native Hawaiian students only. Logistic regression analyses were conducted for six models of binomial persistence and completion outcome variables, while general linear regression analyses were conducted for two models of continuous academic achievement outcome variables. Findings indicate participation in first-year programs significantly increased persistence in finishing the first-year of college—among all students, as well as among Native Hawaiian students specifically—compared to their non-participant peers. For all other persistence, achievement, and completion measures, the models indicated no statistically significant differences between first-year program participants and non-participants. Of note, the regression models revealed that cumulative college credits earned and most recent grade point averages were highly significant in all achievement and completion variables. This study begins to bridge a gap in the research on Native Hawaiian first-year college students and contributes to research on understanding the relationship between student characteristics, university programs, and student success