Performance Of Minority Students Research Articles

Enhanced Math Efficacy and Performance of Minority Students through Student Class Preparation and Teacher Support

This research investigates how minority students demonstrate their math self-efficacy and performance, shaped by factors such as class preparation and math teacher support. Leveraging a comprehensive US national dataset, this study aims to provide broadly applicable insights and suggestions for students from diverse racial and linguistic backgrounds. The findings underscore the substantial influence of high school students’ class preparation on teacher support, math self-efficacy, and math performance. Notably, teacher support exhibits a positive impact solely on math self-efficacy but does not extend to their math performance. Upon examination of various demographic groups, this research identifies noteworthy disparities in the effects experienced by different racial and linguistic groups. This study’s results carry practical implications for educators and practitioners, shedding light on strategies to enhance various minority students’ math self-efficacy and outcomes.

Differential Prediction in the Use of the SAT and High School Grades in Predicting College Performance: Joint Effects of Race and Language

The literature on differential prediction of college performance of racial/ethnic minority students for standardized tests and high school grades indicates the use of these predictors often results in overprediction of minority student performance. However, these studies typically involve native English-speaking students. In contrast, a smaller literature on language proficiency suggests academic performance of those with more limited English language proficiency may be underpredicted by standardized tests. These two literatures have not been well integrated, despite the fact that a number of racial/ethnic minority groups within the United States contain recent immigrant populations or heritage language speakers. This study investigates the joint role of race/ethnicity and language proficiency in Hispanic, Asian, and White ethnic groups across three educational admissions systems (SAT, HSGPA, and their composite) in predicting freshman grades. Our results indicate that language may differentially affect academic outcomes for different racial/ethnic subgroups. The SAT loses predictive power for Asian and White students who speak another best language, whereas it does not for Hispanic students who speak another best language. The differential prediction of college grades of linguistic minorities within racial/ethnic minority subgroups appears to be driven by the verbally loaded subtests of standardized tests but is largely unrelated to quantitative tests.

Relationships Between Minority Students Online Learning Experiences and Academic Performance

The study investigated the relationship between minority students’ use of technology, social media, the number of online courses, program of study, satisfaction, and academic performance. Participants in the study were a diverse student body regarding age, gender, and educational level, and functioned at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests were used to find the relationship between participants’ online learning experiences and academic performance. Results showed that satisfaction and use of social media had no relationship with the academic performance of participants. However, a relationship existed between the use of technology, the number of courses in online, program of study, and academic performance. Categories that emerged from the open-ended questions were flexibility and time convenience, self-confidence, lack of support, self-regulated learning skills, and language and linguistic differences. The authors concluded that varying factors such as cultural, language, personal, and efficacy skills facilitated the academic performance of minority students in an online learning environment. This study reiterates the importance of establishing multicultural presence in an online course and suggests best pedagogical methods for teaching minority students in an online course.

Introduction to Section II

In addition to the special issue section reflecting papers presented in the OTL SIG at the 2016 conference of the American Educational Research Association this issue also features papers from our standard submission process. These papers investigate issues related to the academic performance of minority students in online settings, experiential online learning, learning styles, and virtual conference participation.

Social Identity and Achievement Gaps: Evidence From an Affirmation Intervention

One provocative explanation for the continued persistence of minority achievement gaps involves the performance-dampening anxiety thought to be experienced by minority students in highly evaluative settings (i.e., “stereotype threat”). Recent field-experimental studies suggest that modest, low-cost “buffering” interventions informed by this phenomenon may be highly effective at reducing minority achievement gaps. This field-experimental study evaluates such an intervention in which students complete a self-directed “self affirmation” exercise that encourages them to identify and reflect upon their core personal values. This within-classroom randomized trial was conducted among 2,500 7th and 8th graders from six Philadelphia-area middle schools during the 2008–09 and 2009–10 academic years. Although this study failed to replicate the earlier findings indicating that the affirmation generated large increases in the academic performance of minority students, this treatment did lead to statistically significant improvements in the performance of the minority students in more supportive classroom environments. However, the treatment contrast also reduced the performance of female students in those settings.

Misshaping the River: Proposition 209 and Lessons for the Fisher Case

This article advances the following findings and conclusions:Lesson #1 – At the University of California, which is subject to an affirmative action ban, recent survey data from eight campuses confirms that the campus racial climate is significantly more inhospitable for African Americans and Latinos than at UT Austin and two other peer universities. In particular, these survey data from 9,750 African American and Latino students confirm that having an affirmative action ban and low diversity is associated with African Americans and Latinos perceiving that students of their race or ethnicity are less respected on campus compared to those on campuses with affirmative action and/or higher levels of diversity. Although establishing a correlation is not the same as proving causation, these data are consistent with the conclusion that affirmative action bans and lower diversity (at least in combination) lead African American and Latino students to feel that they are less respected by their peers. Moreover, on the question of “critical mass” versus racial isolation that was discussed at length during the U.S. Supreme Court’s oral argument in the Fisher case – and that was one key consideration taken into account by UT Austin in devising its admissions program – the comparative data in this article suggest that the threat of educational harm associated with racial isolation is very real (particularly for African Americans) and should not be minimized or overlooked. Lesson #2 – Contrary to recent claims by groups opposing affirmative action, Proposition 209 (“Prop 209”) triggered a series of educationally harmful “chilling effects.” Data on UC’s freshman admit pools spanning a dozen years show that underrepresented minorities (more so for those with the strongest credentials, and especially for African Americans) are more likely to spurn an offer from UC than they were before Prop 209, and the difference compared to whites/Asian Americans has gradually widened under Prop 209. In combination with the survey data above, these findings about students’ enrollment choices again cast doubt on claims by affirmative action critics that Prop 209 benefited underrepresented minorities by lessening racial stigma. Declines in law school applications and undergraduate enrollments are also reviewed and contextualized.Lesson #3 – Affirmative action critics supporting Petitioner are propagating two related myths about credentials and performance. First, they scapegoat affirmative action as the overwhelming cause of racial/ethnic differences in SAT scores at UT Austin and elsewhere, when this relationship is quite modest for reasons stemming from the mathematics of admissions. Secondly, the critics stubbornly insist that affirmative action causes substantial “mismatch” effects on underrepresented minority student performance when in fact there is a voluminous social science literature indicating that affirmative action at highly selective institutions has a net positive effect on graduation rates and other important outcomes. Law school mismatch claims are also reviewed.Lesson #4 – While some argue in favor of class-based affirmative action in lieu of race-conscious programs, UC’s atypically large enrollment of low-income undergraduates is strong “natural experiment” evidence verifying that class-based policies are not effective substitutes for race-conscious policiesLesson # 5 – The experience of: UC Business Schools and UC Law Schools after Proposition 209 provide compelling case studies regarding the need for race-conscious affirmative action

Getting off on the wrong foot: Longitudinal effects of Hispanic students' stability attributions following poor initial test performance

Though studies have established that following poor performance, attributions to stable causes affect the performance of minority students, few studies have explored the impact of stability attributions over time. This study explored attributions following initial failure among a predominantly Hispanic student population. We measured students' collectivism, stability attributions and grades at three points during the semester. Attributions to stable causes were associated with worse initial grades and lesser gains in academic performance over time. Further, collectivism was associated with greater initial attribution to stable causes but less increase in attributions to stable causes over time.

Analysis of factors that predict clinical performance in medical school

Academic achievement indices including GPAs and MCAT scores are used to predict the spectrum of medical student academic performance types. However, use of these measures ignores two changes influencing medical school admissions: student diversity and affirmative action, and an increased focus on communication skills. To determine if GPA and MCAT predict performance in medical school consistently across students, and whether either predicts clinical performance in clerkships. A path model was developed to examine relationships among indices of medical student performance during the first three years of medical school for five cohorts of medical students. A structural equation approach was used to calculate the coefficients hypothesized in the model for majority and minority students. Significant differences between majority and minority students were observed. MCAT scores, for example, did not predict performance of minority students in the first year of medical school but did predict performance of majority students. This information may be of use to medical school admissions and resident selection committees.

Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A Social-Psychological Intervention

Two randomized field experiments tested a social-psychological intervention designed to improve minority student performance and increase our understanding of how psychological threat mediates performance in chronically evaluative real-world environments. We expected that the risk of confirming a negative stereotype aimed at one's group could undermine academic performance in minority students by elevating their level of psychological threat. We tested whether such psychological threat could be lessened by having students reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or "self-integrity." The intervention, a brief in-class writing assignment, significantly improved the grades of African American students and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. These results suggest that the racial achievement gap, a major social concern in the United States, could be ameliorated by the use of timely and targeted social-psychological interventions.

Diversity and Discontent: The Relationship Between School Desegregation and Perceptions of Racial Justice

A number of recent studies have explored the consequences of interracial peer effects on the academic and social performance of minority students. This article contributes to that discussion, focusing, however, on perceptions rather than behaviors. The analysis suggests that exposure to white peers is associated with declining perceptions of racial justice among black and Latino high school students. While cautioning against causal interpretations of this finding, the article suggests that the integrationist aims of Brown v. Board of Education will not be satisfied without more thoughtful and vigorous desegregation efforts.

Bilingualism for the Minor or the Major? An Evaluative Analysis of Parallel Conceptions in China

This paper is an analysis of two conceptions of bilingualism that exist in parallel in China. One is traditional bilingualism referring to the use of a native minority language and standard Chinese by minority groups and the other, seen as bilingualism with modern characteristics, is a modern-day phenomenon in which the majority Han group aspire to produce bilinguals with a strong competence in mother tongue Chinese and a foreign language, primarily English, by using Chinese and the foreign language as mediums of instruction in teaching school subjects. The focus of the analysis is on the latter for the simple reason that current literature on the new phenomenon is mostly available only in Chinese. An equally important aim of this paper is to explore the impact of the new phenomenon on minority education and to examine the reason why this impact is largely ignored in bilingualism discussions, despite obvious consequences with respect to ethnic identity, personality development and academic performance of minority students. Thus, the traditional conception is briefly reviewed at the start.

Racism in Peer-Group Interactions: South Asian Students' Experiences in Canadian Academe

For this qualitative inquiry, 40 South Asian students in a predominantly White Canadian university participated in interviews to investigate how racism is prevalent among peers in the university environment. Differential treatment is evident in the everyday interactions between minority and mainstream students, negatively affecting the overall academic performance of minority students. Interviewed male and female minority students were undergraduates and graduates across disciplines, between 18-24 years of age. Recommendations include more visibility of minority students and cross-cultural activities to challenge the persistence of racism in the university setting.

Attributions for Success and Failure in Mathematics: A Comparative Study of Catholic and Public School Students

The documented higher performance of minority students in Catholic versus public schools raises questions about motivational factors that may underlie the impact of parochial education. This study examines attributions for success and failure and their relationship to mathematics achievement in a sample of African American, Latino, and Caucasian fifth- and sixth-grade public and Catholic school students. Results showed that relative to their public school peers minority students in Catholic schools endorsed attributions that were more adaptive for learning. Specifically: 1) Latino and African American Catholic school students were less likely to attribute success in mathematics to external factors, 2) Latino Catholic school students were more likely to attribute success to ability, and 3) African American Catholic school students were less likely to attribute failure to external factors. Further, for Latino students, Catholic but not public school membership was positively associated with mathematics achievement. Results are discussed in the context of school culture.

Using Laptop Computers to Improve the Performance of Minority Students: A Pilot Project

A school system and a university joined forces to improve the science and mathematics environment for local minority students with a program that utilized computer technology. The initiative involved individual students from all of the high schools in the Winston–Salem/Forsyth County (North Carolina) School System. In this initiative, Wake Forest University operated a two-week Summer Science and Math Experience for minority students. During the two weeks, students worked intensively with computers and, at the end of the summer program, a laptop computer was loaned to each student for personal use during the of school year. Through interviews and questionnaires, students overwhelmingly endorsed their involvement in the computer-oriented project, both the summer and academic year phases. They especially liked having access to the Internet (provided by the project), being able to use e-mail and chat rooms, and utilizing the information retrieval potential. Parents and teachers surveyed also praised the project, feeling that their students learned more as a result of being involved in project activity.

Structure and Discretion: Missing Links in Representative Bureaucracy

Studies of representative bureaucracy highlight both passive and active forms of representation. Passive representation refers to similarities in demographic characteristics between bureaucrats and client populations. Active representation refers to situations in which bureaucracies work to further the needs of a particular group of people. In this study, we examine the role employee discretion plays in linking passive and active forms of representation in a sample of six hundred school districts in Texas. Specifically, we argue that active representation is enhanced in organizations that vest greater discretion in their employees. Our study reveals that minority student performance improves under organizational structures that promote, rather than limit, minority teacher discretion.

Expectancy Effects in the Classroom: A Special Focus on Improving the Reading Performance of Minority Students in First-Grade Classrooms

Teacher expectations for students has been an exciting topic of research in educational psychology since the publication of Pygmalion in the Classroom by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968). This article reviews the development of research in this area and notes the rich application value of this literature for social policy issues. The article discusses an intervention program for improving the reading performance of 1st-grade low income minority students in general (and Black low income students specifically). This example is but 1 instance of how this broad research base could be used to improve performance in various social settings.

Minority Student Achievement: Passive Representation and Social Context in Schools

Previous research indicates that the academic performance of minority students improves when school faculties include minority teachers. This research addresses this issue using data from some 540 school districts and 668 campuses in Texas. It finds that the greater the shortfall between the district/campus percentage of minority teachers and the district/campus percentage of minority students, the lower the percentage of district/campus minority students passing the state achievement test. When controls are entered for the rate of increase in minority student percentage, this association disappears for Hispanic students but not for African-American students.

Private/Public School Choice and Student Performance Revisited

This paper examines the differences in an index of standardized test performance of urban private/public school seniors by race, using a sample of 4172 students from the 1992 US National Education Longitudinal Survey. In addition to using 257 exogenous variables to control for individual traits, family background, etc., we treat both student performance and school choice as jointly endogenous in the context of a simultaneous equations model with a latent variable: school choice. We find that while White students perform marginally better in private relative to public schools, a performance gain for private school minority students was not realized. Given the additional finding that school characteristics/quality do not affect minority student performance, we conclude that 'school choice' is mostly taken advantage of by White urban residents.

Assessing Minority Student Performance

Recent studies suggest that minority students do not perform well on standardized assessment measures commonly used to evaluate their preparation for and performance in college. This chapter examines student outcomes and criticisms surrounding standardized achievement testing and discusses strategies for employing alternative assessment approaches.

Racial/Ethnic Differences in High School Students’ Academic Performance: Understanding the Interweave of Social Class and Ethnicity in the Family Context

While previous researchers have noted differences in the educational performance of minority students as a function of differences in family structure (e.g., single parent status) and socioeconomic level (c.g., family income), relatively little attention has been focused on the issue of ethnicity and educational performance. Using data from the 1988 and 1990 waves of the National Educational Longitudinal Study, this study posits that culture-based distinctions across ethnic groups may also affect the academic success of minority students. In a relative comparison, social class-based characteristics are shown to be the best predictors of educational performance among minority students, yet several culture-based traits arc also shown to be significantly associated with students’ academic performance. The implications of these findings for educators and policy-makers are discussed.