The relationship of student involvement and multicultural comfort among student government members as compared with the student population at Oregon State University

Graduation date: 1995The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of social interaction and social comfort among five undergraduate ethnic groups: African American, American Indian, Asian American, Caucasian American, and Hispanic American. Another purpose was to explore the correlation between the level of social contact and comfort among the five ethnic groups. The sample included 141 full-time, continuing undergraduate and graduate students at Oregon State University. The contact scale included items measuring the number of acquaintances, frequency of\ud interaction, positive degree of feeling, number of friends, and duration of contact.\ud The comfort scale was a modified version of Byrnes and Kiger's (1988) Social Scale. It asked respondents to rate from one (very uncomfortable) to seven (very comfortable) their comfort with people of different ethnicity in six roles: president of the United States, counselor, professor, a small group member in a classroom setting or co-curricular activity, a roommate, or a date. T-tests of variance compared information about ethnicity. Pearson correlation coefficients were also used to\ud explore the relationship between contact and comfort. Regression analysis and chisquare\ud procedures were also performed for more detailed analysis on contact, comfort, and demographic scales. Results of the study demonstrated that involvement in Associated Student Government at Oregon State University was consistent with increased contact levels\ud between students in the five ethnic groups. There were, however, no significant increases in comfort across ethnic lines. All groups were most comfortable with their identified ethnic group