The North American Indigenous College Students Inventory

MY RESEARCH

TRIBAL COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: A TESTAMENT OF RESILIENCE AND NATION BUILDING (RESEARCH REPORT FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA’S CENTER FOR MINORITY SERVING INSTITUTIONS)

Due to the dearth of quantitative research that analyzes the college experiences of students who attend Tribal Colleges and Universities, the focus of this research report is two-fold: (1) analyze data extracted from the National Center for Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for enrollment, completion, and financial aid trends for TCUs; and (2) examine the perceptions of support and cultural and educational outcomes for the 266 AI/AN TCU students who participated in the Native American College Student Study and compare their experiences to AI/AN students who attended predominately white institutions (PWIs) and Native-Serving, Non-Tribal Institutions)

THE VALIDATION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIGENOUS COLLEGE STUDENTS INVENTORY (NAICSI) (ACCEPTED)

The North American Indigenous College Students Inventory (NAICSI) was designed to measure cultural integrity (preservation of cultural traditions) through six support factors (family, tribe, peers, staff, faculty, and institution) and their effect on cultural reciprocity, and cultural resiliency for Native American college students. Statistical analyses revealed the NAICSI yielded high levels of internal  consistency, content validity, and construct validity. Additionally, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesized factor structure. The NAICSI was validated on 1,567 Native American college students from 75 institutions and representing over 300 tribes. The NAICSI could be used as a valid metric for evaluating on-campus support factors for Native American college students.

MEASURING GRADATIONS OF CULTURAL INTEGRITY FOR NATIVE AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS: A LATENT CLASS ANALYSIS APPROACH

Native Americans have higher rates of attrition (McFarland et al., 2016) when compared to their ethnic counterparts. Previous studies have attributed the academic (un)success of Native students to cultural conflict (Brayboy et al., 2012; Okagaki, Helling, & Bingham, 2009) and social isolation (Huffman, 2010) while in a postsecondary setting. In the present study, the author utilized a latent class analysis to identify different cultural integrity (maintenance of cultural traditions) subgroups. Participants included 1,066 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Canadian First Nation college students. A latent class analysis yielded three distinct categories, by assessing perceptions of social isolation, cultural reciprocity, cultural resiliency, on-campus support factors (e.g., faculty, staff, institutional, and social) and home environmental support factors (e.g., tribal and family). Approximately 52% of participants belonged in the 1st latent class, which was characterized by having higher perceptions of support and lower perceptions of social isolation, which was correlated with higher GPAs (M = 3.45, SD = .41) and higher rates of persistence. A 2nd latent class (31%) had mid-level perceptions of support and social isolation. Finally, the 3rd class (17%) produced low levels of perceptions of support and higher levels of social isolation, which were correlated with lower GPAs (M = 2.41, SD = .37) and lower levels of persistence.