The moderating effects of racial identity and cultural mistrust on the relationship between student-faculty interaction and persistence for Black community college students

2012-10-08Serving nearly 12 million students annually, American public community colleges provide access to higher education for a large and diverse population, including those who would otherwise not have access to postsecondary education (American Association of Community Colleges, 2011; Cohen & Brawer, 2008). However, national data reveal that community college students persist and graduate at low rates (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Fortunately, decades of research have documented the positive impact of one intervention, student-faculty interaction, on educational outcomes for four-year students (Endo & Harpel, 1982; Kuh & Hu, 2001; Lamport, 1993; Lundberg & Schreiner, 2004; Pascarella, 1980; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). ❧ The current quantitative study examined the relationship between frequency of student-faculty interaction, student ethnicity/race, and persistence for a community college population. In addition, the study investigated the role of racial identity and cultural mistrust in the relationship between student-faculty interaction and persistence for African American students. ❧ The results of a hierarchical logistic regression found that frequency of student-faculty interaction positively predicts fall-to-spring persistence among first-time freshmen students (n = 371). The study found that, even while controlling for students’ pre-college characteristics, increasing one point on the student-faculty interaction scale increased odds of persisting by over 9%. An ANOVA analysis revealed that frequency of student-faculty contact differed significantly by student ethnicity/race, F (4, 398) = 3.196, p = .013. Specifically, African American (n = 40, M = 8.05, SD = 5.09) and Hispanic (n = 140, M = 7.41, SD = 5.14) students reported having more contact with faculty outside of the classroom when compared with Multi-ethnic (n = 40, M = 5.73, SD = 3.78) and White (n = 114, M = 5.84, SD = 4.32) students, p < .05. The regression model used to test the role of racial identity and cultural mistrust in the link between student-faculty interaction and persistence for African American students revealed insignificant results. The small sample size (n = 38) and low variability in the outcome variable for African American students may have created problems for the models. ❧ The limitations of the study and the implications of the study findings are discussed