The Role of Faculty In Faculty–Student Engagement: Disaggregated Analyses by Ethnicity for Southeast Asian American College Students

Abstract

The Role of Faculty In Faculty–Student Engagement:Disaggregated Analyses by Ethnicity for Southeast Asian American College Students Soua Xiong (bio) Higher education institutions have struggled to support the degree completion of Southeast Asian American (SEAA) college students (Keo & Noguera, 2018), a population that has been historically understudied and underserved (Museus, 2014). Thus, increased attention to the success of this group of students is important. Research has indicated that faculty–student engagement is a contributing factor to degree completion (Price & Tovar, 2014). Given the importance of faculty–student engagement on degree completion, understanding its predictors can be important to begin addressing degree completion rates for SEAA college students. Some research on SEAA college students has suggested that faculty–student engagement is a function of the conditions created by faculty (Vang, 2018; Xiong & Wood, 2020). For example, students' perceptions of the number of faculty who validate them were found to be a significant predictor of faculty–student engagement for SEAA students (Xiong & Wood, 2020). However, these studies have been limited in scope, focusing primarily on faculty validation and faculty belonging practices as predictors of faculty–student engagement. In addition to these practices, the current study included student perceptions of faculty relationship and welcoming engagement inside and outside of the classroom as predictor variables of faculty–student engagement. Research on faculty–student engagement that has included Asian American participants has infrequently disaggregated analyses by specific Asian ethnic groups (e.g., Chang, 2005; Cole, 2010). Analyses based on an aggregation of ethnic Asian populations may mask important ethnic differences. Therefore, disaggregated analyses for specific Asian ethnic groups are warranted since research has suggested the experiences of SEAA college students vary by ethnicity (Xiong, 2021). The current study analyzed faculty–student engagement data that could be disaggregated by Southeast Asian ethnic groups (e.g., Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese) to examine ethnic differences. As such, the purpose of the current study was to examine how student perceptions of faculty practices predicted engagement with faculty and whether significant predictors of faculty–student engagement varied by ethnicity among SEAA college students. This study is the first to systematically examine these relationships for SEAA students. The current investigation is also the first empirical study to conduct disaggregated analyses on faculty–student [End Page 461] engagement among SEAA students. In addition to advancing the knowledge base on SEAA college students and the broader literature on faculty–student engagement, findings from this study can contribute to building the capacity of higher education institutions in advancing success outcomes for SEAA students. METHODS Data for the current study come from the Community College Success Measure (CCSM), an institutional needs assessment tool designed to examine factors impacting the success of historically underserved students in community colleges. The CCSM was selected for the current investigation because it allowed for the analysis of student perceptions of faculty practices and student engagement with faculty that can be disaggregated by specific Southeast Asian ethnic groups. While more than 13,000 students from 12 community colleges across four states completed the CCSM between 2015 and 2018, the analytic sample for this study included a total of 605 participants who identified as Southeast Asian: Cambodian (n = 72, 11.9%), Hmong (n = 262, 43.3%), Laotian (n = 39, 6.4%), Vietnamese (n = 129, 21.3%), and Other Southeast Asian (n = 103, 17.0%). Predictor variables consisted of composite variables that assessed student perceptions of faculty practices and included the following five measures of faculty practices: (a) faculty belonging, reflecting students' perceptions that faculty members make them feel they belong in class; (b) faculty relationship, indicating students' perceptions that faculty members know important information about them; (c) faculty validation, assessing students' perceptions of the number of faculty members who communicate validating messages to them; (d) faculty welcoming engagement (inside the classroom), reflecting students' perceptions that their engagement in class is both welcome and encouraged by faculty members; and (e) faculty welcoming engagement (outside the classroom), reflecting students' perceptions that their engagement outside of class is both welcome and encouraged by faculty members. The faculty belonging, relationship, and welcoming engagement items are measured on a 6-point Likert scale that ranges from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. The faculty validation...