1. Do Student Perceptions of Cultural Climate and Social Support Predict Academic Success? A Cross-Cultural Investigation Jeanne Edman

2.  Academic success is linked to a feeling of campus belonging.  Campus climate is an important factor for academic success among ethnic minority students.  Academic self esteem is associated with academic success.  Are these relationships true among community college students?

3.  White students report higher levels of campus belonging than African American, Latino and Asian students.  Ethnic minority students often report lower academic efficacy than White students.

4.  Little is known about the impact of student perceptions on academic success among community college students.  However, African American and Hispanic students have less success obtaining educational goals than Asian and White students.  The present study will compare perceptions among four ethnic groups at CRC.  We will examine whether perceptions are associated with student success.

5.  1703 students volunteered to complete the survey.  Demographic comparisons for 1513 students who provided student ID.  Courses represented all major divisions  Questionnaire took approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

6.  Cultural Congruity (Gloria)  Social Support (Peer and Mentoring, Gloria)  Academic Self Efficacy (Bandura)  Campus Environment (Gloria)

7. Comparison of Social Items by the following ethnic groups: Asian (N=552) African American (N=195) Caucasian (N=366) Latino (N=246) The following slides include only the two extreme scores on the likert scales related to cultural fit and social support

14. “ Cultural Congruity ” by Ethnic Group

26. Scale Score and GPA means by Ethnicity  Statistical differences as follows:  Asians lower cultural congruity than other groups  African Americans higher academic self efficacy than other groups  African Americans lower GPA than other groups  Latino lower GPA than Asians and Caucasians  Asians higher social score than Caucasians

32. Relationship between GPA and Perception scores  African Americans: No relationship between Cultural congruity, social support, mentoring, academic self efficacy and GPA.  Asians: Academic self efficacy correlated with GPA.  Caucasians: Cultural congruity positively correlated with GPA, social support negatively correlated with GPA.  Latinos: Mentoring and Academic efficacy correlated with GPA.

33. Findings  Fail to support previous findings among University students:  in lack of relationship between student perceptions and academic success among African Americans.  African Americans have the highest levels of cultural fit and academic efficacy.  Cultural congruity is associated with Academic success only among Caucasians.  Mentoring was not associated with Academic success among Asians, Caucasians and African Americans.

34. How is the data used?  Assessing SLOs at the college level.  Stimulating campus discussions on equity issues.  Obtaining student feedback as to the findings of the survey.  Development of student support programs and courses.  Providing data to support the planning process.  Providing student perception data to improve campus teaching and learning.

35. Questions Why is social support and mentoring not associated with academic success? How can you explain the lack of relationship between academic efficacy and GPA among African American and Caucasian students? What implications does this have for the classroom? What are some possible explanations for the finding that cultural fit was only associated with GPA among Caucasian students? What are some possible explanations for the lower cultural congruity scores among Asian students?