American Indian Students Perceptions on Factors of Academic Success

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Post-secondary education success factors
Perceptions of Native Americanstudents
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Background In 1990, among American Indians 25
years and older, just 9 percent had earned a
bachelors degree or higher (AIHEC,
2000). Furthermore, a mere 3 percent held
graduate or professional degrees (Pavel, et al.,
1998). This contrasts with the total population
25 years and older, in which 20 percent had
attained a bachelors degree or higher, and 7
percent held a graduate or professional degree
(Pavel, et al., 1998).
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Only 54 percent of the American Indian
undergraduates enrolled stayed in college after
the first year compared with 68 percent of
undergraduates nationwide (Pavel, et al., 1998).
The three-year persistence rate of American
Indian students was 33 percent compared with 49
percent for all undergraduates (Pavel, et al.,
1998). In "The Demographics of American Indians"
Hodgkinson suggested that as many as 75 percent
of American Indians who begin college, leave
prior to graduation (Hoover Jacobs, 1992).
Norbert Hill, Oneida educator, states that as
high as 93 percent of postsecondary American
Indian students drop out (Bowker, 1993).
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Of the ninety-seven degrees in UW- Milwaukee
awarded in 1993-94, one of these was to an
American Indian (University of Wisconsin System,
2001). The ten year period from 1991-92 to
2000-01 resulted in 931 Doctoral degrees being
conferred at UW-Milwaukee. Three of these were
to American Indian students (http//www.uwsa.edu/o
par).
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So out of this arises the need to determine what
resources/ supports American Indian students need
to be successful in their post-secondary schooling
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Question What factors do American Indian
students at UW-Milwaukee perceive as being
important to their academic success?
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Data Collection I created and posted on the
internet, a survey that requested the students
to rank factors such as self, community, nation,
family, children, etc. in importance to their
academic success. Additionally, the students
were to respond to the question What factors
would you contribute to you being successful in
your schooling?
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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The participants Thirty of the 185 American
Indian students on campus responded- reflecting
16 of the population 10 male/ 20 female Equal
number of stop-outs vs. continuous enrollment
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24 full-time students 6 part-time students
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(No Transcript)
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T-test importance of nation to
success Comparing the students responses to the
importance of nation who labeled themselves with
tribal identification to those who did not, the
t-test was found significant at a 0.01. Of
further interest is the responses of those
students who did not identify themselves by
heritage were found significantly greater at a
0.05 to the neutral response of three. While
students who did identify themselves by tribal
heritage had a mean value of 2.478- a negative
response to the importance of nation.
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Community Related to Tribal Nation, is the
community. Fascinatingly, these responses were
similar to those of the importance of tribal
nation. The students who identified themselves
by tribal heritage had a mean value of 2.696,
while the students who did not identify
themselves by heritage had a mean value of 4.857
to the importance of community.
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Hypothesis Possibility that disconnected
students (those without a strong tribal cultural
background) are acquiring a greater sense of
identity through their educational experience and
this is why the significance of nation is being
expressed. Alternatively, students with strong
tribal backgrounds may be feeling the pressure
from family and friends who are fearing the
student will not return to home.
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Significance of Self The fact that every
responder who did not identify themselves by
tribal heritage responded to the importance of
self as 5 immediately jumped out from the data.
Alternatively, the students who identified
themselves by tribal heritage reported a score
with the mean value of 3.074 to importance of
self. t-test found the difference in responses
from the two groups to be significant at the
alpha level of 0.01.
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The importance of studying and study habits
emerged from the free response question. From
this, it may be valuable for American Indian
communities to provide workshops in study skills
for those students going on to college.
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For the future Discrepancy between numerical
data and dialogue- survey will reflect this by
eliminating the numerical and replace with verbal
terms that will later be re-coded to numerics for
data analysis More information regarding the
students tribal cultural background needs to be
obtained to be able to determine if there is a
genuine difference in what factors are perceived
as important between the groups
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Questions