Chicano Students In South Texas Community Colleges: A Study Of Student And Institution-related Determinants Of Educational Outcomes.

Utilizing conceptual subsets of symbolic interactionism posed by Caplan and Nelson (1975) and Tinto (1973), a research model was constructed to investigate student and institutional determinants of educational outcomes for Chicano students in three South Texas community colleges located in significant Chicano population centers in the United States. Student-related determinants in the model were identified as student background characteristics and student choice of educational and career goals. College-related determinants were identified as student-institution interactions and Chicano collective consciousness. The effects of predictor variables were measured for two categories of student educational outcomes: (1) subjective attainment: student perceptions of the extent and satisfaction with present goal attainment and (2) objective attainment: number of college hours earned and college credentials earned within four years of initial entry to college. A 46-item survey instrument was sent to a random sample of 1,786 Chicano students enrolled in one of the three community colleges in the Fall semesters of 1977 and 1978. Follow-up procedures were employed based on a systematic two-phase sampling technique (Kish, 1965), resulting in a sample size of 227 students (23.71% response rate). Statistical techniques such as factor analyses, Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficients and dummy variables were used to reduce data. Direct and indirect effects of predictor measures on each dependent measure were determined through multiple regression analysis. Salient study findings indicated that Chicano students who achieved their educational goals (1) exhibited high family socioeconomic backgrounds; (2) demonstrated strong achievement in high school; (3) had working fathers; (4) received high degrees of prior encouragement to attend college from parents, teachers, counselors, and peers; (5) developed strong commitments toward goal accomplishment; (6) selected academic-related goals; (7) defined as a reference group, academic support staff comprised of members of the same ethnic group; and (8) exhibited an externally-oriented perception that institutional systems, not members of their own ethnic group, were primarily responsible for social and educational inequities. The study concluded with a discussion of theoretical, practical, and future research implications of the study findings.PhDEducationSchool counselingUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127631/2/8304579.pd