African American Student Organizations As Agents of Social Integration

Journal of College Student Development, May/Jun 2003 by Guiffrida, Douglas A

METHODS

Recently, college retention researchers have argued that quantitative measures of college student social integration have failed to identify the complexities involved in the social integration of minority students (Hurtado, 1997; Kuh & Love, 2000). Rendon, Jalomo, and Nora (2000) have recommended that future research investigating the integration of minority students include qualitative methods that allow a definition of social integration to emerge from the students' perspectives. Therefore, to understand the impact of African American student organizations on social integration from the perspectives of students, qualitative methods using the constant comparative method of data collection and analysis were used in this study (Glaser & Straus, 1967). Although the methods are similar to those used by Padilla et al. (1997), this study was designed to expand upon this earlier work by narrowing the sample to focus solely on African American students; expanding the numbers of African American students to gain a larger, more diverse range of perspectives (including the perspectives of freshmen); and by including individual follow-up interviews to expand upon themes raised during the group interviews (Glaser & Straus) and to gain perspectives from participants who may have been uncomfortable sharing in the group interviews (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998).

Sample

A total of 88 African American students from a midsize (under 11,000 undergraduates), 82% White research institution located in the Northeastern United States participated in the study. The sample, which was approximately 45% male and 55% female, consisted of 16 freshman, 39 sophomores, 18 juniors, and 15 seniors. To allow a wide array of perspectives to emerge, the sample included both actively involved students as well as those who reported little or no involvement in African American organizations.

Sixty-seven students volunteered to participate as part of their participation in a 6-week academic enrichment program designed to serve students who were recommended by faculty and/or academic advisors as not living up to their college potential. This was defined as academic probation, suspension, or motivation to improve grades for acceptance into graduate school. GPAs for these students ranged from O to 3.0. To diversify the sample to include the perspectives of academically higher achieving students, flyers were posted around campus soliciting the participation of students who self-identified as "high achieving African American students." This resulted in the addition of 20 students with GPAs ranging from a 2.5 to 3.93.

Data Collection and Analysis

Consistent with the prior research investigating cultural activities, small focus groups were used during data collection to obtain more real-world dialogue (Loftland & Loftland, 1995). Similar to the study by Padilla et al. (1997), focus groups were originally designed to consist of 5 to 10 students and to last an hour. However, after the first group it become apparent that fewer students and longer sessions would enhance my ability to collect richer information. Therefore, focus groups were reduced to 2 to 6 students and interviews were conducted in periods of 1.5 to 2.5 hours.