Cargando…

Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU

The purpose the present study is to explore African American undergraduate students' perceptions of their experiences and academic motivation within a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) learning environment. As part of a larger study, we collected 212 open-ended survey responses fr...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Freeman, Kimberley Edelin, Winston-Proctor, Cynthia Eileen, Gangloff-Bailey, Felicia, Jones, Jason M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8217429/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34168596
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669407
_version_ 1783710586517848064
author Freeman, Kimberley Edelin
Winston-Proctor, Cynthia Eileen
Gangloff-Bailey, Felicia
Jones, Jason M.
author_facet Freeman, Kimberley Edelin
Winston-Proctor, Cynthia Eileen
Gangloff-Bailey, Felicia
Jones, Jason M.
author_sort Freeman, Kimberley Edelin
collection PubMed
description The purpose the present study is to explore African American undergraduate students' perceptions of their experiences and academic motivation within a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) learning environment. As part of a larger study, we collected 212 open-ended survey responses from first year students in STEM majors about how the HBCU context shapes their academic motivation. We used semantic thematic data analysis and found three major themes and corresponding sub themes that were salient in the development of students' academic motivation: place (institutional climate, HBCU mission and tradition, and absence of marginalization); pedagogy (culturally relevant pedagogy, positive faculty-student relationships, African American curriculum and instruction, racial socialization); and people (people “like me”; student, faculty and alumni models of high achieving African Americans). We discovered that HBCU institutional factors engendered academic motivation that is rooted in students' racial identity and suggest the construct of racial identity-rooted academic motivation. Given the important and unique realities of African American students that impact their educational experiences, engagement, identity development, and achievement in various types of school contexts, self and sociocultural variables must be included in research and theory on the motivational psychology of African American students. Implications for higher education practice and future research are discussed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8217429
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-82174292021-06-23 Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU Freeman, Kimberley Edelin Winston-Proctor, Cynthia Eileen Gangloff-Bailey, Felicia Jones, Jason M. Front Psychol Psychology The purpose the present study is to explore African American undergraduate students' perceptions of their experiences and academic motivation within a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) learning environment. As part of a larger study, we collected 212 open-ended survey responses from first year students in STEM majors about how the HBCU context shapes their academic motivation. We used semantic thematic data analysis and found three major themes and corresponding sub themes that were salient in the development of students' academic motivation: place (institutional climate, HBCU mission and tradition, and absence of marginalization); pedagogy (culturally relevant pedagogy, positive faculty-student relationships, African American curriculum and instruction, racial socialization); and people (people “like me”; student, faculty and alumni models of high achieving African Americans). We discovered that HBCU institutional factors engendered academic motivation that is rooted in students' racial identity and suggest the construct of racial identity-rooted academic motivation. Given the important and unique realities of African American students that impact their educational experiences, engagement, identity development, and achievement in various types of school contexts, self and sociocultural variables must be included in research and theory on the motivational psychology of African American students. Implications for higher education practice and future research are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8217429/ /pubmed/34168596 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669407 Text en Copyright © 2021 Freeman, Winston-Proctor, Gangloff-Bailey and Jones. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Freeman, Kimberley Edelin
Winston-Proctor, Cynthia Eileen
Gangloff-Bailey, Felicia
Jones, Jason M.
Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title_full Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title_fullStr Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title_full_unstemmed Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title_short Racial Identity-Rooted Academic Motivation of First-Year African American Students Majoring in STEM at an HBCU
title_sort racial identity-rooted academic motivation of first-year african american students majoring in stem at an hbcu
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8217429/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34168596
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669407
work_keys_str_mv AT freemankimberleyedelin racialidentityrootedacademicmotivationoffirstyearafricanamericanstudentsmajoringinstematanhbcu
AT winstonproctorcynthiaeileen racialidentityrootedacademicmotivationoffirstyearafricanamericanstudentsmajoringinstematanhbcu
AT gangloffbaileyfelicia racialidentityrootedacademicmotivationoffirstyearafricanamericanstudentsmajoringinstematanhbcu
AT jonesjasonm racialidentityrootedacademicmotivationoffirstyearafricanamericanstudentsmajoringinstematanhbcu