Dr. Janetta Gilliam, PhD Dissertation Defense, Dr. William Allan Kritsonis, Dissertation Chair

Janetta C. Gilliam 1March 23, 2009 10:30 AM

The Effects of Student Engagement and Other Factors on The Retention of African American Freshman Students Attending a Public Historically Black College and

University in Texas

A Dissertation Defenseby

Janetta C. GilliamPhD Program in Educational Leadership

Prairie View A&M University


Dissertation Defense Committee

Dr. William A. Kritsonis Dissertation Chair

Dr. David Herrington Dr. Lucian Yates, III Dr. Camille Gibson


Dissertation Defense Format

I. Theoretical Framework II. Purpose of the StudyIII. Research QuestionsIV. Research Methods V. Summary of FindingsVI. Conclusions

VII. Recommendations


Theoretical Framework

Tinto’s Institutional Student Departure Model

Astin’s Student Involvement Theory


Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to

examine factors that may contribute to the retention of African American

freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas.


Research Question 1

Is there a relationship between background

characteristics ( high school GPA and gender)

and retention of African American freshman

students attending a public HBCU in Texas?


Research Question 2

Is there a relationship between academic

and social integration and retention of

African American freshman students

attending a public HBCU in Texas?


Research Question 3

Is there a relationship between student

faculty interaction and retention of African

American freshman students attending a

public HBCU in Texas?


Research Question 4Is there a relationship between student

financial solvency (ability to pay) and the

retention of African American freshman

students attending a public HBCU

in Texas?


Research Question 5

Is there a relationship between student

engagement and the retention of African

American freshman students attending

a public HBCU in Texas ?


Null Hypotheses

Ho1 - There is no statistically significant

relationship between student’s background characteristics (high school GPA and gender) and retention of African American freshman students attending a public

HBCU in Texas.


Null Hypotheses


relationship between academic and social integration retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas.


Null Hypotheses

H03 - There is no statistically significant

relationship between student-faculty

interaction and retention of African


a public HBCU in Texas.


Null Hypotheses

H04 - There is no statistically significant

relationship between student’s financial

solvency (ability to pay) and retention of

African American freshman students

attending a public HBCU in Texas.


Null Hypotheses


relationship between student

engagement and the retention of African


a public HBCU in Texas.

Method


Methods

Descriptive Statistics

Correlational Statistics

Pearson’s r Correlation


Hypotheses Dependent

Variable

Independent

Variables

Statistical Test

Ho1 Retention

Background

Characteristics

(High school and gender)

Correlation

Pearson r

Ho2 Retention Academic and

Social Integration

Correlation

Pearson r

Ho3 Retention Student-Faculty

Interaction

Correlation

Pearson r

Ho4 Retention Financial Solvency Correlation

Pearson r

Ho5 Retention Student Engagement

Correlation

Pearson r


Method Subjects of the Study

The analytic sample used in the study is limited to 129 first year, full-time,

degree seeking African American freshmen.

The target sample size is 129, however, 110 students responded to all of the survey questions.


Method

Research Design Quantitative research approach. Correlation research design was used

to examine the relationships among the variables.

Descriptive research methods were utilized.


Method Instrumentation 2007 National Survey of Student

Engagement Instrument (NSSE) A self-report survey four-point Likert-type instrument A 28 item instrument with multiple parts

on most items that assess the experiences of college students through questions related their level of satisfaction.


MethodInstrumentation NSSE has 3 major components College activities

Educational and personal growth Opinions about your school

Reliability and Validity NSSE is recognized and has been

tested as a survey instrument with strong psychometric properties (Pike, 2006).


Descriptive Statistics Descriptive statistics and analyses were

conducted to test the variables in each of the research questions.

The measure of central tendency was tabulated to summarize the entire set of the respondents’ scores in the frequency distribution. Respondent’s scores were added and divided by the number of scores (n-110).

Respondents’ data was entered in SPSS 16.0 software for analysis to determine the statistical significance of the variables and tested at the value of p<.05.


Descriptive Statistics The means computed the average of all

respondents’ scores. Standard deviation was used to measure the

spread of the scores. The range measured the difference between

the highest and lowest respondents’ scores Frequency distribution tables were

developed to rank order the demographic characteristics of the study sample population.



Each respondent included in the study, student background characteristics (high school GPA and gender) was collected via NSSE.

Student background characteristics values were listed in a spreadsheet and entered into SPSS 16.0.

The arithmetic mean of each respondent’s rating scale were listed in a column in SPSS 16.0.



Correlation statistical analysis was used to determine the relationship between variables.

Pearson r coefficient was calculated to determine whether a statistical significant relationship exists between each variable on the NSSE and retention.


Summary of Findings Research Question 1

Is there a relationship between a student’sbackground characteristics (high school GPAand gender) and retention of AfricanAmerican freshman students attendinga public HBCU in Texas as measured by the2007 NSSE instrument ?


Summary of FindingsResearch Question 1

Correlation Between High School GPA, Gender and Student Returned for Fall 2007 Semester (Retention) using Pearson r showed no statistically significant relationship.

r = - .350 p = .005, (p < .01)

The null hypothesis failed to reject.



Is there a relationship between academicsocial integration and retention of AfricanAmerican freshman students attending a

publicHBCU in Texas as measured by Student-Faculty Interaction and Active Collaborative Learning on the NSSE instrument?



Correlation between academic and social integration measured by (*Student-Faculty Interaction and **Active Collaborative Learning) and retention measured by (Student returned for Fall 2007 semester) using the Pearson r coefficient showed no statistically significant relationship.

*SFI items **ACL items

r = .641 r = 1.00 p = .005 (p< .01) p = .005 (p< .01)

Null hypothesis failed to reject



Is there a relationship between student-faculty interaction and retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas as measured by the NSSE ?



Correlational analysis was performed using Pearson r coefficient. There was no statistically significance relationship between student-faculty and retention.

r = -.113 p = . 005 (p< .05) The null hypothesis failed to reject.



Is there a relationship between financial solvency (ability to pay) and retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas as measured by students receiving/not receiving financial aid and student returning for fall 2007 semester ?



Correlation analysis was performed using Pearson r computation. There is a statistically significance relationship between financial solvency and retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas

r = .222 p = .005 (p<.05)The null hypothesis is rejected.



Is there a relationship between student engagement( Academic Challenge) (NSSE) and retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas as measured by the NSSE survey instrument.



Correlation analysis was performed using the Pearson r coefficient indicate that there is no statistically significance relationship between student engagement and retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas as measured by NSSE survey instrument

r = .009 p = .005 (p>.05)

The null hypothesis failed to reject.


Conclusion The study is guided by five research questions,

which examine factors that may contribute to student retention at a selected HBCU. A correlational analysis was performed and the Pearson r coefficient calculated.

Demographic questions on the survey instrument was used to test for statistical significance and reported using descriptive statistics

Financial solvency is the only variable that is a significant predictor of student retention for first-year African American students attending a pubic HBCU in Texas.


Conclusion Two student background characteristic

variables( high school GPA and gender) has a statistically significance relationship.

Neither variables has any statistically significance relationship to retention of African American freshman students attending a public HBCU in Texas.

A possible reason four of the variables failed to be significant predictors of retention could be due to the data distribution.


Conclusion A possible reason four of the variables failed to be

significant predictors of retention could be due to the data distribution.

Other reasons why background variables were not significant predictors of retention in this study:

More female respondents ( N = 69) than male respondents (N = 41) in this study, this disparity could have affected the impact gender on student retention.


Implications

The findings from this study suggest some important implications for the theory and practice in higher education.

Rather than merely looking at the margins of academic and social life, institution personnel need to direct their attention to providing assistance to students encountering financial difficulties, during the foundational first year of college.


Recommendations

A new survey instrument be developed and administered to gain a better understanding of the relationship between student financial solvency and retention

This institution and other HBCUs need to be more proactive in promoting policies, programs, and individual help for African American freshman students who need it to overcome financial difficulties which correlates with persistence.


Recommendations for Further Study

A study could be conducted with a different instrument designed by HBCUs that has a wider range of choices within a Likert-type scale. This could provide a greater potential variance for each variable so that true difference would emerge.

A study could be conducted to examine the students’ perceptions of financial aid services and an assessment of it’s customer service needs.



A study could be conducted with a qualitative approach. This type of study could provide an opportunity to interview respondents. Thereby gaining meaningful insight recorded in the respondent’s own words.

A study could be conducted that included both on and off campus African American freshman students at HBCUs. This study only included on-campus freshman students.



A study could be conducted on the link between student financial difficulties and not returning to school. An examination of factors that are financial aid related that may contribute to student departure.


Recommendationfor Further Study

A study could be conducted to examine the experiences of African American freshman students attending various institutional types and sizes to provide a more comprehensive understanding of African American college students’ financial concerns and dilemmas.

Dr. Janetta Gilliam, PhD Dissertation Defense, Dr. William Allan Kritsonis, Dissertation Chair

Education

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