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The relationship of ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution to academic success among Asian American undergraduates

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The relationship of ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution to academic success among Asian American undergraduates

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Content THE RELATIONSHIP OF ETHNICITY, GENDER, ACCULTURATION,
INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS, AND SENSE OF BELONGING IN THE
INSTITUTION TO ACADEMIC SUCCESS AMONG
ASIAN AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATES
by
Hyang Helen Chung
_________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2011
Copyright 2011 Hyang Helen Chung
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the many people who have shaped my life and helped me along
this journey. First and foremost, I would like to thank my chair, Dr. Ruth Chung, who has
served as my advisor, inspiration, role model, and mentor for the past year-and-a-half.
Her words of encouragement and understanding always made me feel at ease and taught
me how to be a better researcher and person. It is my hope one day to follow in her
footsteps. I would also like to thank Dr. Darnell Cole, who has provided valuable
feedback and wisdom throughout the dissertation process and inspired me with his great
passion as an educator. Finally, I would like to thank my other committee members, Dr.
Ginger Clark and Dr. Maryann Wu, for their continuing support and encouragement.
This dissertation would also not have been possible without the statistical analysis
talents of Nik Gorman. Thank you for helping me through the hurdles of sorting through
my data and making sense of it all. Thanks also to Sumi Pendakur and Jade Agua at
APASS, as well as to Joon Kim, Melisa Carson, and Rocke Demark for their assistance.
I would also like to acknowledge the members of my 2008 cohort, particularly
Rosemary, Stacy, Ashley Cho, Jorge, Eric, Hannah, Miyako, Gerald, Monica, Crystal,
and Sabrina. I will always treasure having been on this rich journey together.
Words cannot express the heartfelt love and deepest appreciation that I have for
my father and mother, Wonho and Myosook Chung, who have loved and supported me
endlessly. They have made so many sacrifices for me throughout the years with their
belief in me. For that I dedicate this dissertation to them.
iii
A special thanks goes to my husband, Kyung Moon, without whom I could not
have accomplished this. His patience, guidance, and encouragement got me through those
difficult times and sleepless nights. Finally, I would like to thank to our son, Sejin, who
has been waiting for me to finish my dissertation since he was four years old. He gets his
mother back now.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ii
List of Tables v
Abstract vi
Chapter I: Introduction 1
Chapter II: Literature Review 16
Chapter III: Methodology 35
Chapter IV: Results 44
Chapter V: Discussion 56
References 71
Appendices
Appendix A: Informed Consent Form 79
Appendix B: Demographic Information 81
Appendix C: Asian American Multidimensional
Acculturation Scale 83
Appendix D: Intergenerational Conflict Inventory (ICI) 85
Appendix E: College Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI) 86
Appendix F: Sense of Belonging to Campus 87
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Sampled Students 36
Table 2: Means, Standard Deviation, and Pearson Product
Correlations for Measured Variables 45
Table 3: Summary of T-Test Comparisons by Gender 47
Table 4: Summary of ANOVA Comparisons by Ethnicity 48
Table 5: Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of
Acculturation, Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, Sense
of Belonging, and Gender on GPA 50
Table 6: Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of
Acculturation, Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and
Gender on Social Self-Efficacy 51
Table 7: Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of
Acculturation, Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and
Gender on Roommate Self-Efficacy 53
Table 8: Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of
Acculturation, Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and
Gender on Course Self-Efficacy 54
Table 9: Summary of Stepwise Regression Modeling of Course,
Roommate, & Social Self-Efficacy on GPA 55
Table 10: Summary of Respondents by Ethnicity and Generation 65
vi
ABSTRACT
This study seeks to contribute to the exploration of the factors affecting today’s
Asian American college student population by investigating the relationship between
ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging in the
institution, on the one hand, and these students’ academic performance, on the other.
Data were collected from 265 Asian American undergraduate students who completed an
online survey consisting of queries for demographic information as well as questions
from the Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale, the Intergenerational
Conflict Inventory, the Sense of Belonging Scale, and the College Self-Efficacy
Inventory.
The results of this study revealed that acculturation, intergenerational conflicts,
and sense of belonging were significant predictors of academic performance among
Asian American college students. Specifically, intergenerational conflicts over education
and career were found to be important influences on students’ GPA and higher course
self-efficacy, while acculturation to European-American culture was found to be a
significant predictor of self-efficacy for the subscales of social and roommate self-
efficacy. Sense of belonging in the institution also positively influenced all three
subscales of self-efficacy. Given the lack of previous empirical research investigating this
relationship among Asian American students, these results demand that higher education
institutions pay greater attention to strengthening their students’ sense of belonging.
Regarding gender differences, interestingly female students reported higher GPAs than
male students while also reporting higher family conflict surrounding dating and
vii
marriage. Although such findings showed mixed results, this study can contribute
fruitfully to a limited number of studies that have considered the impact of gender
differences among Asian American young people.
Above all, this study demonstrates that there is significant diversity among Asian
American college students, even within a limited sample of generally high-achieving
students at a selective four-year university. And the components of this diversity are not
only ethnicity and gender, but also patterns of acculturation, of intergenerational
conflicts, of immigration and generational differences, and of attaining a sense of
belonging.
1
CHAPTER I
Introduction
Diversity and complexity in Asian American academic achievement
Education is believed to be the primary means of social and economic mobility in
the United States. Nowhere is this belief system held so sacredly as among immigrants,
particularly Asian Americans. There are many explanations for why over nine million
Asians have immigrated to the United States since 1965 and keep coming to this country,
but likely, as Min (2006) and Yang (2010) point out, one of the most common reasons is
concern over the future of their children, especially in higher education opportunity. As
Yang puts it, until the 1990s, very few people in most Asian countries could enroll in
college due to limited enrollments and the highly competitive admission process through
standardized college entrance examinations. Although recently many more high school
graduates have gained access to college, there remains a large gap between the U.S. and
such Asian countries. This might explain why education, particularly college education,
has remained a great concern for Asian American families, and why their children’s
academic success in college has been of the highest priority.
Asian American college students in general are widely perceived to do well in
school. Much of this perception of academic achievement is based on popular impressions
and portrayals in the mass media. Along with many research studies, these portrayals have
reinforced the model minority image of Asian Americans as academically successful,
hardworking, and especially gifted in math and science (Hune, 1998). Such
generalizations forward the notion that these students do not need much support for their
2
academic endeavors and do not even have to be treated as minority students. These
impressions, however, focus only on a subset of Asian Americans who enter the top-
ranking institutions of higher education. Furthermore, these perceptions fail to notice the
larger proportion of Asian Americans enrolled in community colleges, a number reaching
approximately 47.3%, according to a 2008 American Community Survey conducted by
the U.S. Census Bureau (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/10/2010). There is, in
fact, considerable variation in the levels of educational attainment and achievement
among Asian American students (Oliver, Gey, Stiles, & Brady, 1995), and many Asian
American students are overlooked and underserved in the higher education setting. As Um
(2003) points out, most higher education institutions remain insufficiently aware of the
wide range of needs of Asian American students, thus denying these students access to
critical academic resources and support. Simply put, most educators and education policy
makers do not seem to recognize the enormous ethnic, socioeconomic, familial, and
cultural diversity of Asian American students.
In terms of ethnicity, for example, according to the Asian-Nation Organization
(ANO), and based on the 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Samples, Vietnamese
Americans only have a college degree attainment rate of 20%, and the rates for Laotians,
Cambodians, and Khmer are even lower at less than 10%. In the same data, Asian
Americans have a 42.9% rate of college degree attainment (website retrieved from
http://www.asian-nation.org). This suggests that when Asian Americans are considered as
a homogenous group, they are outperforming other groups. But if the data are segregated
into the individual ethnic groups, the rates for Laotians, Cambodians, and Khmer are very
3
similar as those of Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans, for whom the rates
are 9.9%, 13.6%, and 10.8%, respectively. As Hune (2002) has found,
In 1990, the Asian American college enrollment rate was 55.1 percent, compared
to 34.4 percent for all Americans aged eighteen to twenty-four years. However, it
differs widely within the Asian American population, from 66.5 percent for
Chinese Americans and 63.5 percent for Japanese Americans to 28.9 percent and
26.3 percent for Native Hawaiians and Laotian Americans, respectively (p.16).
When Asian Americans are not broken into specific sub-groups, then, the statistical data
homogenizes the level of academic and socio-economic success of Asian Americans
(Kao, 1995). This proves that even though the prevailing perception of academic success
could be applied to a certain population of Asian American students, other populations
unquestionably need greater attention.
The strong perception of Asian Americans’ academic success, then, obscures the
fact that Asian Americans come from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances,
including but not limited to ethnic differences, and that their educational needs are
likewise just as varied. Hune (1998) has argued, for example, that the model minority
image actually can serve to place unreasonable expectations on Asian American students
by implying that they must all be academically successful. Not surprisingly, according to
the ANO, many Asian Americans feel significant pressure to fit into the persistent belief
that Asians are high achieving.
Aggregate data for Asian Americans hide significant variations across not only
Asian American ethnic groups, but also between Asian American students (native-born in
the U.S. and immigrants) and Asian international students. Asian international students’
academic performance is thus another critical component in the generalization that Asian
4
Americans are academically successful. There have been relatively little data separating
Asian American students from Asian international or foreign students, although these two
groups are distinct populations. In one example of the different statistics for these two
groups, Hune (2002) observes that Asian foreign students received 7,688 doctorates, or
about 18 percent of all doctorates awarded in the United States in 1997, while Asian
Americans earned 1,329 doctorates, or 3 percent of all doctorate degrees overall and 4.8
percent of all doctorates earned by U.S. citizens (p. 17). Most universities and colleges,
however, do not recognize these significant differences because they have mostly
aggregate data. Further obscuring matters is that the most recent immigrants among Asian
American students have similar backgrounds and English language proficiency levels as
Asian international students.
Although one of the pressing issues in higher education is access and equity for all
students, without debunking the persistent model minority perception and segregating the
data, Asian American students cannot be served appropriately. Hune suggests that “ethnic-
specific and need-specific policies and programs may be required to enhance the academic
progress of groups at risk, especially Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander groups” (p. 19).
In fact, more targeted policies and programs are necessary for Asian Americans as a
whole, since recent demographic changes on campus have proven dramatic. As Barnes
and Bennett (2000) show, the Asian American student population keeps growing in
number, diversity, and complexity. Despite the extensive literature on educational
achievement by Asian Americans, then, there need to be more empirical studies on the
factors that influence their varying school experiences and on how today’s Asian
5
American students can be better served according to their specific needs. In order to
contribute to efforts to assist a diverse and complex group of Asian American students, a
more precise understanding of this population, and of the factors that influence their
patterns of academic achievement, is necessary.
Given the dramatic development of the Asian American population over the past
few decades and the immigrant background of many Asian American college students,
this study seeks to analyze Asian American student achievement through the following
three sets of measurements: intergenerational relations between parents and students, the
degree of acculturation of students, and Asian American students’ sense of belonging in
the institution. Furthermore, this study will analyze all three factors in relation to each
other, and then, ultimately, to diversity within the Asian American student population.
Background of the problem
No segregation of data. The term Asian Americans has often been used with Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) interchangeably, but the very definition of the
term Asian American is not clear-cut, for the complexity and diversity of this group have
not been thoroughly investigated yet. In fact, “Asian American” refers to a broad range of
people and includes many distinct ethnic groups. Within the Asian American population,
there are over 50 ethnic groups and 100 different language groups. As Hune (1997) points
out, generalizations about the Asian American population hide important variations in
educational achievement within and among ethnic groups and prevent students from
getting the appropriate services. According to Suzuki (2002), in fact, “Asian Americans
were initially not included as a protected minority group under federal affirmative action
6
regulations” (p. 22). Asian Americans thus have been perceived as a problem-free group;
if they had any problems, so the thinking went, they take care of them on their own.
The importance of segregating data for Asian American students is most apparent
when considering the unique needs and concerns of individual Asian ethnic groups and
students. In the AAPI (Asian American/Pacific Islander) category, Asian Indians,
Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Vietnamese make up 80% of the population, with other
large AAPI ethnic groups being Japanese, Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Native
Hawaiian, Pakistani, Samoan, and Thai. The differences among Asian Americans are
particularly noticeable when data on educational attainment are disaggregated according
to ethnic groups. According to the 2000 Census data, in one example of disparity among
Asian American sub-groups, 53.3% of Cambodians, 59.6% of Hmong, 49.6% of Laotian,
and 38.1% of Vietnamese over 25 years of age had less than a high school education. By
contrast, 13.3% of Asian Indians, 12.7% of Filipinos, 8.9% of Japanese, and 13.7% of
Koreans over 25 years of age have less than a high school education (NEA report, 2005).
There are also significant gaps between immigrants who came to the U.S. earlier
and more recent immigrants. As Suzuki (2002) shows, contemporary Asian Americans are
formed mainly from the population of three distinct waves of migration and their
descendants. The first waves of migration came to the U.S. as laborers from China, Japan,
Korea, and the Philippines to help to develop the western United States in the late 19
th
and
early 20
th
centuries. The second wave of immigrants was allowed to come to the U.S. after
the implementation of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. This group consisted
largely of Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Asian Indians. According to Kobayashi
7
(1999), a significant demographic change occurred in the U.S. between 1970 and 1990. In
1970, 95.2 percent of Asian Americans were Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino. The new
ethnic groups in the 1990s, however, consisted of the following: Southeast Asians (8.5
percent Vietnamese, 5.8 percent Cambodian, 2.1 percent Laotian), Asian Indians (11.2
percent), and Koreans (11 percent). Furthermore, this third group included refugees from
Southeast Asia who immigrated under the protection of the 1975 Indochina Migration and
Refugee Assistance Act and the follow-up 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act.
The recognition of three distinctive waves of migration is particularly important to
understanding the range of academic achievement of Asian American students. For
example, the differences in the shared experience of immigration reflect differences in
the processes of acculturation among sub-groups of ethnicities, between generations of
the same ethnicity, and between Asian American students and their families. Asian
American students’ sense of belonging, too, should be understood not just as adjustment
to the institutional environment, but also in the context of these within-group differences,
which give rise to factors such as the imbalance in values and norms between home and
school and excessive pressures to fulfill filial piety expectations.
From the 1960s to the early 1970s most Asian immigrants were highly educated,
professional, and had possessed high socioeconomic background in their culture of
origin. In contrast to these mostly voluntary early immigrants to the U.S, more recent
Asian American immigrants, such as those who came to the U.S as refugees, often
experienced more challenges due to the lack of knowledge and resources. Moreover, due
to the pressure from the model minority image, recent Asian American students have felt
8
more burdens in achieving academic success. For example, recent immigrant Chinese
students were found to be significantly less happy than both American-born Chinese and
early immigrant Chinese (Sue and Zane, 1985). The authors concluded that for recent
immigrant students, academic excellence had the following academic and psychological
costs: studying longer hours, taking fewer courses, enduring feelings of loneliness and
isolation, limiting one’s career, and sacrificing a social life in order to perform as well as
other Chinese students. Similarly, Wong et al. (1998) point out that unlike some Asian
Americans who have established themselves in mainstream society successfully, many
Asian Americans, particularly recent immigrants, are struggling.
Incomplete explanations for Asian American students’ academic success. There
have been several scholarly explanations for Asian Americans’ academic success. In the
late 1980s, Lee and Rong (1988) described three attributes of this success: family
structures, investment in education for the next generation, and entering professions in
the ethnic economy as a return for educational attainment. In the late 1980s and early
1990s, Ogbu (1987) and others forwarded a cultural-ecological theory, which divided all
minorities into the three categories of autonomous, immigrant, and involuntary, and
attributed Asian Americans’ relative success to differences in their socio-historical
conditions compared to those of involuntary minorities such as the Blacks and Native
Americans. Sim (1995), meanwhile, explained Asian Americans’ academic success
through the concept of filial piety, or respect for and obedience to one’s parents, which
originated from Confucian ethics and stressed dedication to one’s parents, relatives, and
elders in a hierarchical family structure. Therefore, achieving high grades and choosing a
9
desirable professional career were deemed the proper way to meet the obligations of filial
piety.
Sue and Okazaki (1990), whose work became one of the most frequently cited in
Asian American education, presented three theories based on the examination of existing
literature on the higher educational achievement of Asian Americans: the heredity
perspective, the cultural hypothesis (family value and socialization expectations), and
relative functionalism, which referred to Asian Americans' belief that academic success
could be a way to overcome societal disadvantages such as discrimination in U.S. society.
Subsequently, while it was established that relative functionalism could indeed serve as a
possible explanation for Asian Americans’ academic success, the heredity perspective was
refuted by empirical research, and the cultural hypothesis was found wanting in explaining
the full range of patterns of Asian Americans’ academic achievement. Meanwhile, Kao
and Tienda (1995) suggested that immigrant and generational status could explain why
Asian American students were achieving better test scores and grades: the higher
educational aspirations and expectations of their culture of origin and of their parents.
Out of these explanations for Asian Americans’ academic success, the present
study takes as most illuminating Asian Americans’ immigrant status, their culturally
pluralistic family structures, and their strategies to overcome racial discrimination to
achieve social mobility. This study also employs Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological
theory, which describes the complex layers of environmental systems on a person’s
development, as a framework to analyze and understand Asian American college students’
academic success.
10
Theoretical framework
In discussing the existing literature of the time, Bronfenbrenner (1979) notes that,
“Seldom is attention paid to the person’s behavior in more than one setting or to the way
in which relations between settings can affect what happens within them” (p.18).
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory specifies five socially organized environmental systems
that encompass a developing human: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem,
and chronosystem. As Bronfenbrenner (1979) explains, “They [the five socially
organized subsystems] range from the microsystem, which refers to the relationship
between a developing person and the immediate environment, such as school and family,
to the macrosystem, which refers to institutional patterns of culture, such as the economy,
customs, and bodies of knowledge” (p. 37). The mesosystem provides a connection
between the structures of a developing person’s immediate settings--for example, the
connection or interaction between the person’s parents and the person’s teacher or
educator. The exosystem is the larger social system in which a young person does not
function directly, such as parents' workplace schedules or community-based family
resources. Finally, the chronosystem integrates the dimension of time as it relates to a
person’s environment. The example could be either external or internal, such as the timing
of a parent’s death.
The key to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory lies in the interaction of structures
within a layer and between layers, as this shows how a developing individual’s social
ecology is composed of a complex set of embedded structures that range from micro-to
meso-to exosystem (Szapocznik et al., 1993). Since the purpose of the present study is to
11
examine the relationship between acculturation, intergenerational relations, and sense of
belonging in the institution, as well as ethnicity and gender, on the one hand, and
academic success among Asian American undergraduates, on the other, Bronfenbrenner’s
(1979) ecological theory appears most applicable when attempting to describe and analyze
the components of Asian American undergraduates’ complex surroundings. These
conditions include immigrant parents, status as ethnic minorities, different levels of
acculturation, intergenerational relations in a culturally pluralistic family, and others. For
instance, Sim (1995) finds that for Asian American students, academic success refers to
achieving high grades in order to enter an acceptable (by their family and community)
professional career, and that meeting this expectation of academic success also fulfills the
obligations of filial piety. Sim’s analysis shows that although there are certain cultural
values (macrosystem) central to Asian Americans’ academic success, the relationship
between the students and parents constitutes a central layer of a microsystem, featuring
direct and bi-directional contact.
Acculturation. In order to understand the factors that influence academic success
among Asian American undergraduates, it is critical also to examine the acculturation
process of students, since most students come from culturally pluralistic, immigrant
households. The concept of acculturation deals broadly with, as Liu (2003) puts it, “the
degree of cultural change that takes place in values and behaviors” (p. 38) resulting from
contact between two distinct cultures (Berry, Trimble, & Olmedo, 1986). Often, the
consequences of these changes reflect and drive generational differences. As Chung, Kim,
and Abreu (2004) state, “Acculturation is a complex process, with each cultural dimension
12
having a differentiated pattern of relationships to specific types of intergenerational
conflict” (p. 78). Redfield et al. (1936) posit that acculturation is a process of change in
the original cultural patterns through continuous contact between people who come from
different cultural backgrounds. The point of Redfield et al. (1936) is to emphasize the
changes experienced by either or both groups, but the authors do not equate acculturation
with assimilation. Since the majority of Asian Americans are foreign-born (Yang, 2010),
the acculturation process constitutes an essential part of their experience, and the process
and rate of acculturation are personal and vary between individuals (Pham & Harris,
2001). In the present study, acculturation serves as a key variable in students’ academic
success.
Self-efficacy. In order to measure Asian Americans’ academic success, GPA and
self-efficacy will be used as indicators. The concept of self-efficacy was originally rooted
in Bandura’s social-cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986). Bandura (1986) defines self-
efficacy as the self-evaluation of one’s competence to successfully accomplish a course of
action necessary to reach desired outcomes. Self-efficacy is not a trait or a set of
personality characteristics, but rather one’s belief about one’s capabilities of successfully
performing in a specific behavioral domain or task. According to Valentine, DuBois, and
Cooper (2004), self-efficacy has become a vital concept in education and a main predictor
of educational achievement in a variety of disciplines. Similarly, Zimmerman, Bandura,
and Martinez-Pons (1992) also assert that one’s self-efficacy affects learning and
academic achievement.
In a meta-analystic investigation, Multon, Brown, and Lent (1991) verified a
13
positive, statistically significant relationship between self-efficacy belief and academic
performance and persistence. Harrison et al. (1997) further asserted that self-efficacy is
related to the willingness to undertake challenging tasks, the persistence at tasks, and
successful performance of those tasks. Given that self-efficacy has been shown to be
associated with goals and goal-setting, self-regulated learning, and stress and anxiety, it
has drawn the attention to many educators who detect a connection between self-efficacy
and academic success and persistence (Hackett and Betz, 1981). Greenstein (2000) studied
the self-efficacy of Asian American undergraduates, for example, and found that self-
efficacy was significantly and positively related to academic development. Gore et al.
(2006) investigated the relationships between the CSEI (College Self-Efficacy Inventory)
scores—with a total of three subscales: Course; Roommate; and Social efficacy--and the
scores from measures of college expectations, college performance, and college
persistence. They found that total CSEI scores correlated with GPA and were significantly
higher for retained students than for non-retained students. Finally, Lent et al. (1994), too,
extended Bandura’s and Hackett and Betz’s theoretical work by integrating further
empirical findings on the relationship between self-efficacy and achievement.
However, Lent et al. also emphasized other social cognitive factors and
environmental and personal influences that could be involved in academic and career
development, and thus suggest that, for all of its analytical value, self-efficacy can be seen
more as a mediator, not causal factor, of academic performance or achievement. Along
these lines, Solberg et al. (1993) found that, for college students, the effect of self-efficacy
encompasses confidence in the ability to perform course-related tasks, in maintaining
14
harmonious relationships with roommates, and in having rewarding social interactions
with others. Indeed, Solberg and colleagues (Solberg, O’Brien, Villareal, Kennel, &
Davis, 1993) developed the CSEI (College Self-Efficacy Inventory) as a way to measure
self-efficacy for a range of college experiences—“the degree of confidence students have
in their ability to successfully perform a variety of college-related tasks” (Solberg et al.,
1993, p. 82)--rather than to use self-efficacy for only one aspect of the college experience
such as academics.
Importance and purpose of the study
As the Asian American student population continues to grow in number, diversity,
and complexity (Barnes and Bennett, 2000), there is growing demand for more empirical
studies on the factors that influence their varying school experiences and, in turn, for
greater understanding of how today’s Asian American students can be better served
according to their specific needs. Given this need to assist Asian American students
through a more accurate understanding of this diverse and complex population, the present
study will explore several major critical factors that influence Asian American college
students’ academic achievement: ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational
relations, and sense of belonging in the institution. Furthermore, this study will
investigate these factors in relation to each other, which distinguishes it from a substantial
amount of research that addresses these factors individually. In turn, such a study can
contribute to developing more effective policies and programs at the institutional level in
order to meet Asian American students’ specific needs and to facilitate their academic
performance.
15
Organization of the study
The remaining chapters are organized as follows:
Chapter 2 provides an overview and analysis of the current research on:
acculturation, including acculturation among Asian American undergraduates; the
construct of “intergenerational conflict,” which will be employed in analyzing the impact
of immigrants’ households; and another construct, “sense of belonging in the institution,”
which will be closely reviewed based on the current research into Hurtado and Carter’s
subjective sense of integration and on other research related to students’ persistence and
academic performance.
Chapter 3 presents the methodology for this study, including the demographical
profile of the students surveyed, instruments used, and procedures for data collection.
Chapter 4 provides the main results of this study, including correlations between
variables and answers to the research questions.
Chapter 5 provides a discussion of the results of the study, its limitations, and
implications for both researchers and practitioners interested in understanding the
relationship between ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and
sense of belonging in the institution, on the one hand, and academic success among Asian
American undergraduates, on the other.
16
Chapter II
Literature Review
The following review of literature will focus on the factors of acculturation,
intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging. The conceptual framework of
acculturation based on Berry’s (1993) acculturation theory and two distinct measurements
of acculturation will be discussed. For intergenerational relations, Szapocznik’s (1980)
work will be used as a framework for examining Asian Americans’ intergenerational
family relations, along with an overview of other research (Ying, Coomb, & Lee, 1999;
Kwak, 2003). Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) work will be reviewed for understanding the
concept of sense of belonging and its influence on academic success. In order to
understand Hurtado and Carter’s work, Tinto’s (1993) integration theory and the criticism
of integration theory by other scholars will be discussed.
Acculturation
Acculturation has been described as a process whereby two groups of individuals
from differing cultures are both left altered after interaction occurs (Berry, 1997;
Redfield, Linton & Herskovits, 1936). Berry et al. (1986) also define acculturation as a
process that deals broadly with changes in cultural attitudes, values, and behaviors that
result from contact between two distinct cultures. However, it has been found that
acculturation is often imbalanced, in which one group tends to experience a greater extent
of change than the other (Berry, 1997; Berry, 1990). Additionally, the psychological
acculturation of an individual may or may not correspond to the overall change within the
group (Berry, 1997).
17
Earlier studies presented the process of acculturation as a unidimensional model
based on the assumption that an individual’s values, attitudes, and behaviors change in a
linear gradient relationship from the culture of origin to a new culture (Berry, 1983).
Cortes, Rogler, and Malgady (1994), however, argue that there has been a
misunderstanding that “increments of involvement in the American host society culture
necessarily entail corresponding increments of disengagement from the immigrant’s
traditional culture” (p. 587). In other words, the unidimensional model tends to establish
a false hierarchical relationship between the individual’s culture of origin and a new
culture, a relationship that can be defined as assimilation. Szapocznik, Kurtines, and
Fernandez (1980) also note that the unidimensional model cannot account for
biculturalism because this model does not allow the conceptualization of involvement in
both the culture of origin and the mainstream culture orthogonally. The assumption
underlying the unidimensional model, then, is that a strengthening of one requires a
weakening of the other -- that is, acculturation is inevitably accompanied by a weakening
of ethnic identity.
In contrast to the unidimensional measurement of acculturation, a bidimensional
model of acculturation is able to measure individuals’ cultural orientation to both their
home and host cultures, accounting for the possibility that minority group members can
have either strong or weak identifications with both their own and the mainstream
cultures. Hence, viewing acculturation from a bidimensional perspective seems to
provide a more accurate and complete picture of the acculturation process. According to a
recent report from the National Education Association, in fact, researchers found that the
18
most successful AAPI students adopt aspects of mainstream American norms and
simultaneously keep aspects of their culture of origin, such as language and culture. The
report describes this specialized strategy as “accommodation and acculturation without
assimilation” (2005, p. 6).
Berry’s acculturation model is based on two principles, cultural maintenance and
contact-participation (Berry, 1993). Individuals who practice cultural maintenance seek
to preserve their cultural identity when they live in a society that is different from their
culture of origin, while those who engage in contact-participation value and search for
contact with those outside their own group and are willing to participate in the larger
society of a new culture. Based on these two principles, Berry et al. identify four
outcomes of the acculturation process for individuals, drawn from independent
dimensions: integration involves maintenance of the culture of origin and adoption of the
host culture; assimilation involves rejection of the culture of origin and adoption of the
host culture; separation involves maintenance of the culture of origin and rejection of the
host culture; and marginalization involves rejection of both the culture of origin and the
host culture. Berry first distinguishes between assimilation and integration, and later
between separation and marginalization, as ways in which acculturation (both of groups
and individuals) could take place. A distinction is rendered between a relative preference
for maintaining one’s heritage culture and identity, and a relative preference for having
contact with and participating in the larger society along with other ethnocultural groups.
According to Berry, “When acculturation experiences cause problems for
acculturating individuals, it results in the phenomenon of acculturative stress” (p. 26).
19
Similarly, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) extend the phenomenon of acculturative stress to
the acculturation discrepancy between immigrant parents and their children, which they
call dissonant acculturation, given that immigrant parents’ cultural expectations of their
children often differ from children’s cultural expectations of their parents. One reason
behind this may be that, as Chung (2001) asserts, parents tend to use more traditional
parenting styles that were considered ideal in their country of origin, but are considered
to be too restrictive by their children who are more acculturated to the host country.
This intergenerational difference might be particularly acute in relation to gender.
Asian sons are generally accorded greater status than daughters because boys continue
the family name and are expected to act as the primary caretakers of their aging parents,
whereas girls eventually become members of a different household through marriage
(Das & Kemp, 1997; Ying et al., 1999). Thus, boys may experience greater pressure to
conform and adhere to their culture of origin. On the other hand, as Tang (1997) states,
with more exposure to American ideals and practices of greater gender equality, Asian
girls may resent this differential treatment and embrace American values more than their
brothers.
To summarize the literature on acculturation, one of the three factors for
measuring Asian American students’ academic success in this study: Berry’s
acculturation model represents two principles, cultural maintenance of culture of origin
and contact-participation in the new culture. Furthermore, there are two opposing
measurements of acculturation, the unidimensional and bidimensional model. The
unidimensional model presumes a hierarchical relationship between the individual’s
20
culture of origin and the new culture. In contrast, the bidimensional model of
acculturation is able to measure individuals’ cultural orientation to both their home and
host culture. Most existing acculturation measurements related to Asian Americans are
based on a unidimensional model, including the predominant measure, the Suinn-Lew
Asian Self-identity Acculturation Scale (SL-ASIA, 1987). In the present study, however,
the Asian American Multidimensional Scale (AAMAS) developed by Chung et al. (2004)
was used to assess the level of acculturation of Asian American students. As the AAMAS
allows one to assess acculturation bidimensionally, this study assesses acculturation to
the culture of origin and to the host culture independently and does not consider the two
cultures as opposite poles of a single dimension. Such an approach, it is believed, best
accounts for the diversity of backgrounds and circumstances among Asian Americans.
Intergenerational relations
It has been found that intergenerational conflict persists through late adolescence
and into early adulthood for many Asian American children (Greenberger & Chen, 1996;
Ying & Han, 2007). Szapocznik (1993) asserts that while immigrant parents tend to retain
the values and behaviors normative in their culture of origin, their children more rapidly
adopt mainstream American values and behavior. Furthermore, by the time immigrant
children enter college, Asian American adolescents who mostly come from immigrant
families tend to experience increased conflict between the values and norms of their home
culture, as espoused by their parents, and those of the prevailing U.S ideals, such as
independence and autonomy. This conflict tends to become more acute as both the age of
the children and the stakes of the dispute increase. As Chung (2001) points out, “Value
21
contrast between individualism and collectivism may result in painful clashes between
parents and their young-adult children over degree of autonomy in making important life
decisions” (p. 377).
Szapocznik and Kurtines (1993), in fact, postulate that, “The concern with the
individual in a cultural macrocontext does not fully recognize the microcontext (e.g., the
family) that links the individual to her or his culture” (p. 401). Their finding is very
similar to Bronfenbrenner’s original nested systems model, which suggests that an
individual’s ecological environment is composed of a complex set of nested (embedded)
structures that range from micro-to meso- to exosystems. Szapocznik et al. (1993)
extended such an ecological model to understand adolescents from immigrant families
within the framework of a culturally pluralistic environment. Such an environment is
represented not by the direct relationship between individual adolescents and their culture
of origin, but rather by the embedded family that plays a crucial role in the
intergenerational relations between immigrant parents and children. Similarly, Chung
(2001), too, shows that acculturation plays a role in intergenerational conflict. Because
intergenerational relationships between immigrant parents and adolescents are
complicated by number of factors, such as immigrant status, generational differences, and
dissonant acculturation levels as well as cultural gaps, the types of conflicts that occur are
more intricate than the intergenerational conflicts found in non-immigrant families.
Portes and Rumbaut (2001) suggest specifically that differences in acculturation levels
between parents and children are a major factor in intergenerational conflicts in immigrant
22
families. In particular, Asian American students feel intense pressure to succeed
academically from parents and extended family members (Sim, 1995).
As Ying, Coomb, and Lee (1999) point out, from the parents’ perspective, the
nature of the Asian American family's intergenerational relationship is driven by the
norms of their culture of origin. While Asian Americans are a heterogeneous group in
their familial and cultural practices and beliefs, there are underlying commonalities,
particularly the centrality of a hierarchical family relationship and extended family
structure that usually includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. One critical influence of
Asian values on the Asian American immigrant family is the immigrant parents’
preference for interdependence (collectivism) over independence (individualism) (Ying,
Coomb, & Lee, 1999). In contrast to the common American belief that developing a
sense of autonomy and independence from parents facilitates a smooth transition into
adulthood, for Asian American adolescents, the process of developing a sense of
independence requires the negotiation of two cultures that seem to diverge on this issue.
Kwak and Berry (2001) state, however, that while older family members such as
parents tend to preserve their culture of origin after migration, the degree of cultural
continuity varies to a great extent, depending on the ethnic group in question as well as
each group member's acculturation process. For example, Nguyen and Williams (1989)
found that although Vietnamese parents strongly endorsed certain beliefs in their culture
of origin such as, “Parents always know what is best,” both Vietnamese adolescents and
their parents showed favorable views about adolescent autonomy. This finding suggests
that not only Asian American adolescents, but also their immigrant parents negotiate the
23
norms and values between the traditional and dominant culture. Similarly, Lin and Fu
(1990) found that while Chinese immigrant parents tend to exercise more parental control
and put greater emphasis on their children’s academic achievement than Caucasian
parents, Chinese immigrant parents also strongly encourage independence in their
children. In this sense, the children of immigrants would seem to experience more
complex and often more difficult intergenerational relationships compared to those from
non-immigrant families.
Complicating matters even further, although much research has emphasized that
Asian American adolescents face higher levels of family conflict compared to
adolescents from Latin America, the Caribbean, and non-immigrant U.S. households
(Rumbaut, 1994; Lee & Liu, 2001), both Ying et al. (1999) and Kwak (2003) reach a
different conclusion: Asian American immigrant families tend to have “healthy
intergenerational relations” (p. 131). One explanation for this, according to Ying et al.
(1999), is that most Asian American students maintain a strong respect for their parents
and family elders and strive to meet their expectations. Consequently, family
embeddedness is a critical component of Asian American students’ academic success.
Similarly, Fuligni et al. (1999) found that adolescents with the strongest family obligation
attitudes (a form of family-embeddedness) placed the greatest importance on academic
success, spent the most time studying, and had the highest educational aspirations. A
helpful articulation of the basic challenge faced by immigrant children, then, is offered by
Kwak (2003), who compares the intergenerational family relations of immigrants with
those of non-immigrants by employing a scale that ranges from individualism-
24
collectivism to autonomy-embeddedness -- in other words, “how they experience
individuality by establishing autonomy, as well as how they accept the embeddedness of
family relations by seeking validation from parents” (p. 119).
Indeed, for Asian American parents, their children’s success in education, career,
and marriage is often measured more by family achievement than by individual
achievement. Kim, Yang, Atkinson, Wolfe, and Hong (2001) also state that one of the
primary values found in Asian Americans is family recognition through achievement.
Similarly, Fong (2002) found that, in the Chicago area more than eight out of ten Asian
American parents would sell their house and give up their own future financial security in
order to support their children’s education, in comparison with only three of ten
Caucasian parents who would do the same. Unlike the case with students of non-
immigrant or mono-cultural families, for Asian American students, academic success is
not an individual student’s matter, but rather one that often involves the balance--or
conflict--between Asian American students’ autonomy and embeddedness.
Given this, the relationship between Asian American parents and young adult
children should examine the following two factors: 1. Asian American students’ self-
development and adjustment between autonomy and embeddedness; and 2. Degree of
parents’ acculturation, specifically in dealing with conflict between individualism and
collectivism. For this purpose, the Intergenerational Conflict Inventory (ICI) has been
selected as the measurement in the present study, for the ICI was developed to measure
patterns of conflict that are particularly relevant to Asian Americans (Chung, 2001, p.
379). Two conceptual criteria of ICI address the two factors described above: 1. Young
25
adulthood development of one’s identity (self-development) by establishing meaningful
relationships; and 2. Culturally relevant and age-appropriate problems regarding the
Asian American parent-child relationship (embeddedness) and negotiation of
independence (autonomy).
Sense of belonging in the institution
Student engagement, involvement, and integration have received a lot of
attention in higher education settings. There are some overlapping concepts and
differences among these three terms, but recent research and stakeholders have noticed
that all three concepts share a focus on students’ membership, or sense of belonging, to
the institution (Wolf-Wendel et al., 2009). Hurtado and Carter’s work introducing this
concept emphasizes that sense of belonging is the product of the interplay between the
students and the institution. In fact, the notions of student engagement, student
involvement, and student integration were all designed to promote student success by
facilitating the development of a sense of belonging within the college experience, and of
each student’s uniqueness and potential. Although several researchers (Schlossberg, 1989;
Berger, 1997; and Nora, 2004) suggest that the construct of a sense of belonging can be
understood as a process in which students recognize themselves as an important part of a
larger community that values a beneficial, supportive, and affirming environment, there
remains room for further research and a more consistent definition of sense of belonging
in higher education.
Tinto’s integration theory. Tinto’s purpose for proposing a student retention model
was not only to understand the various reasons why students choose to or must leave
26
college, but also to lead educators and stakeholders to rethink the issues of student
retention as a larger consideration in achieving goals in postsecondary education (Tinto,
1993). Tinto asserts that involvement in the college community increases academic
integration, and that academic integration positively enhances a student’s experience
within academic systems and communities (Astin, 1993; Tinto, 1998). Tinto (1993)
analyzes students’ pre-college characteristics, such as gender, age, race, high school GPA,
parent education, parental support, and financial aid. He asserts that students who persist
and attain the college degree show a greater match between pre-college characteristics and
a higher level of academic and social integration. Tinto (1993) also notes that college is a
small society that has its own normative rules and cultures, into which all the members
should be integrated to a certain degree. In this sense, student retention also requires
attention to a process of adjusting to a new normative system and new cultures, for
academic or intellectual integration requires sharing information, perspectives, and values
common to other members of the community.
Although Tinto’s integration theory was influential because it was one of the first to
explain students’ voluntary departure from colleges and universities, several studies have
criticized it because it seems to paint students’ college success as more dependent on the
individual students than on larger cultural and structural factors. As Tanaka (2002) puts it,
“An intersubjective approach might help shift the focus of research beyond monolithic
notions of culture (and race) to the underlying forces of privilege and victim status that
may hinder egalitarian learning in a polycultural space [the urban campus].” (p. 130) In
other words, Tinto’s solution of integration in achieving student persistence in higher
27
education calls for a uni-directional process for students to integrate into or learn the
existing culture of the institution. On the other hand, Tanaka asserts that, based on the
intercultural climate of today’s campuses, the process of integration does not have to
proceed in only one direction. In short, Tinto’s theory has been criticized as advocating
assimilation without considering the growing population of students from racially and
ethnically diverse backgrounds. As Tierney (1992) argues, Tinto’s (1993) integration
theory privileges students from Eurocentric backgrounds. In a recent interview, Tinto has
said that he stopped using the term “integration” many years ago, and that he would like to
substitute “integration” with “sense of belonging” that corresponds to the concept of
Hurtado and Carter (Wolf-Wendel et al., 2009).
Hurtado and Carter’s work. Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) study of Latino students’
sense of belonging investigated the effect of culturally supportive alternatives to the
predominant campus culture as a way to facilitate Latino students’ participation and
retention in college. In contrast to Tinto’s integration theory, which expects that students
learn “mainstream” norms and activities, Hurtado and Carter (1997) employed the concept
of sense of belonging, which “captures the individual’s view of whether he or she feels
included in the college community” (p. 327). Hurtado and Carter found that discussions of
course content with other students outside of class and membership in campus sub-
environments contributed significantly to these students’ subjective sense of belonging in
the institution. Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) Sense of Belonging Scale originally was
adapted from Bollen and Hoyle’s (1990) first dimension of “perceived cohesion,” which
encompasses an individual’s sense of membership in a larger community.
28
Sense of belonging and academic success. Much research suggests a close
relationship between sense of belonging and academic success. The research conducted by
Walton and Cohen (2007) found that African American students who were randomly
assigned to an intervention group experienced various positive outcomes related to their
sense of belonging in college, such as spending more time studying, expressing more
confidence in their own academic potential, and experiencing greater improvement in
their GPA over time. According to Moore et al. (1998), “The resounding theme in the
student affairs literature is that student involvement [engagement] at the collegiate level
does impact student development and learning.” (p. 5) The more students become engaged
academically and socially during college, the more likely they will persist and become
more educated. According to Astin (1984), “Student involvement refers to the amount of
physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience.
Thus, a highly involved student is one who, for example, devotes considerable energy to
studying, spends much time on campus, participates actively in student organizations, and
interacts frequently with faculty members and other students” (p. 292). Although his
concept emphasizes student attitudes regarding academic and social success, however, the
specific attitudes or values that faculty or practitioners should promote are left
unaddressed. Given that student success comes from the reciprocal effort of both students
and institutions, this is a major limitation to such research.
The concept of sense of belonging can be used, then, not only to provide a better
environment, programs, and services, but also to address one of the most pressing issues
in higher education: persistence or retention, a critical factor of academic success. Kember
29
et al. (2001) also concluded in their qualitative study of 53 part-time students that the
students’ sense of belonging could make a difference between completing programs or
dropping out. Due to the increasing diversity of students, there are increasing calls for a
review of traditional university programs and services for students with the aim of
promoting a higher sense of belonging, particularly among minority students. Pascarella
(2001) suggests, in fact, that institutional excellence comes from effective educational
practices or processes based on an equity-minded framework that emphasizes individual
students’ diverse backgrounds, such as immigrant status, multicultural family context, and
differences in values and norms. This concept of membership was also recommended by
Tinto’s revised model of integration in response to criticism by researchers who asserted
that his model does not account for historically marginalized groups of students. Walton
and Cohen’s (2007) study suggests, likewise, that promoting students’ sense of belonging
may be an effective means of improving college performance of potentially marginalized
students. Although American universities have been opened to more diverse students,
most traditional structures, cultures, and systems have remained unchanged, and thus
many minority students base their affiliation with college on membership in sub-
communities.
As UCLA Newsroom indicated in 2001, Asian Americans who enrolled in higher
education now exceeded one million, and the numbers of students keep increasing each
year. As House (1997) states, however, there is a lack of empirical evidence when
examining the factors that influence how Asian American students adjust to the university
environment. In the present study, Hurtado & Carter’s Sense of Belonging Scale,
30
originally designed for ethnic minority students, was used to examine the relationship
between Asian American undergraduates’ sense of belonging and their academic success.
However, the questions for the Sense of Belonging Scale do not specifically ask whether
students involve themselves in religious or community organizations within the
institution. Thus, in this study, the purpose of using Hurtado and Carter’s Sense of
Belonging Scale was to examine the relationship between students’ sense of belonging
and their academic performance, not to survey students’ affiliation with sub-organizations
in the institution.
Summary
This chapter has examined the existing literature on the three major theoretical
constructs for this study: acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging
in the institution. For acculturation, two distinctive measurement models or modes,
unidimensional and bidimensional, have been reviewed, with the conclusion that the
bidimensional mode is more appropriate to examine the current diverse population of
minority students who tend to keep both their new culture and their culture of origin,
rather than strengthening only one culture. Berry et al. point to four outcomes of the
acculturation process for individuals--integration, assimilation, separation, and
marginalization—and suggest that the outcomes of the acculturation process could be the
phenomenon of acculturative stress that causes, for example, a marginalized individual to
face difficulties in building his confidence in any culture. Since approximately 90% of
current Asian American youth are immigrants or children of immigrants, it is vital to
31
examine such signs in the acculturation process of Asian Americans when examining the
influences on Asian Americans’ academic success.
A second construct, intergenerational relations, has also been reviewed as a
critical factor in Asian Americans’ academic success. As Szapocznik et al. (1993) have
found, between the individual student and the student’s culture of origin, the embedded
family plays a crucial role in intergenerational relations between immigrant parents and
children, and the student’s family structure should be understood as a culturally pluralistic
context. Hence, there often develops an acculturation discrepancy between immigrant
parents and their children that results in intercultural conflicts. There are two
representative axes of such conflict: individualism vs. collectivism, and autonomy vs.
embeddedness.
Finally, sense of belonging has been examined as a representative concept of
student involvement, student engagement, and integration. Although Tinto’s integration
theory was one of the first theories that focused on students’ voluntary departure from
college and universities, it has been criticized by researchers for its lack of attention to
racial and ethnic differences, and for the prescriptive character of the model (e.g., Bean &
Metzner, 1985; Rendon, Jalomo, & Nora, 2000; Tierney, 2000). Furthermore, Tinto’s
solution of integration for achieving student persistence in higher education calls for a uni-
directional process for students to integrate into or learn the existing culture of the
institution, a formula that has been criticized as advocating assimilation. Unlike Tinto’s
integration theory, which seems to expect students to learn “mainstream” norms and
activities, Hurtado and Carter (1997) offer the concept of sense of belonging, which
32
“captures the individual’s view of whether he or she feels included in the college
community” (p. 327). According Hurtado and Carter (1997), for Latino students, the
students’ perception of supportive campus racial climates is crucial to their sense of
belonging in the institution. Building on Hurtado and Carter’s work on the key factors
behind Latino students’ sense of belonging in the institution, the present study investigates
the factors that influence how Asian American students adjust to the university
environment and develop a sense of belonging.
Purpose of study
Thus, the purpose of this study was to conduct an empirical investigation of the
relationship between the factors of ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational
relations, and sense of belonging in the institution, on the one hand, and academic
success among Asian American college students, on the other. This study employed the
indicators GPA and self-efficacy to measure academic performance among Asian
American college students.
Research Question 1
Do ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging in
the institution predict GPA among Asian American undergraduates?
Hypothesis 1a: Asian American undergraduates who belong to certain ethnicities
will likely achieve a higher GPA.
Hypothesis 1b: Asian American female students will likely achieve a higher GPA.
33
Hypothesis 1c: Asian American undergraduates who are highly acculturated will
likely achieve a higher GPA.
Hypothesis 1d: Asian American undergraduates who experience fewer
intergenerational conflicts will likely achieve a higher GPA.
Hypothesis 1e: Asian American undergraduates who hold a higher sense of
belonging in the institution will likely achieve a higher GPA.
Research Question 2
Do acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging in the institution
predict self-efficacy among Asian American undergraduates?
Hypothesis 1a: Asian American undergraduates who belong to certain ethnicities
will likely achieve higher level of self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 1b: Asian American female students will likely achieve a higher-level
of self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 1c: Asian American undergraduates who are highly acculturated will
likely achieve higher level of self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 1d: Asian American undergraduates who experience fewer
intergenerational conflicts will likely achieve higher level of self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 1e: Asian American undergraduates who hold a higher sense of
belonging in the institution will likely achieve higher level of self-efficacy.
Research Question 3
Does self-efficacy predict GPA among Asian American undergraduates?
34
Hypothesis: Asian Americans who hold higher-level of self-efficacy will likely achieve
higher GPA.
35
Chapter III
Methodology
This study investigates the influence of ethnicity, gender, acculturation,
intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution on the academic
success of Asian American undergraduates. The following chapter includes information
on the participants used for the study, the instruments utilized, and the procedures for
data collection.
Participants
Asian American undergraduate students were recruited from a 4-year private
research university in southern California during a one-and-a-half month period in the fall
semester of 2010. A total of 315 students volunteered to participate in this study. Of the
315 survey responses, 34 respondents who indicated that they were not undergraduate
students were excluded from the study, and 16 other respondents were excluded because
they belonged to individual ethnicities for which the sample was too small. A total of
265 survey responses, then, were used in the final data analyses. Participants in the
sample ranged in age from 18 to 24 years old (M = 19.25 years, SD = 1.71). As shown in
Table 1, female undergraduate students comprised 68.7% (n = 182) of the sample, while
male undergraduates comprised 31.3% (n = 83) of the sample. Students’ ethnicity, birth
place, generational status, family structure, and parents’ years of education for the current
study are presented in Table 1 below.
The range given for the sample size (n) is due to some participants' not being able
to provide responses to certain questions. Specifically, only 109 participants could
36
provide responses to the question that asked for GPA, as most of the freshmen had not
yet completed their first semester of college.
Table 1
Demographic Characteristics of Sampled Students
Demographic Descriptive Statistics
a
n 265-109
Age 19.25 (1.71)
Sex
Male 83 (31.3%)
Female 182 (68.7%)
Years of Higher Education 2.02 (1.47)
GPA 3.47 (.36)
Ethnicity
Chinese 113 (42.6%)
Indian 15 (5.7%)
Japanese 19 (7.2%)
Korean 42 (15.8%)
Taiwanese 39 (14.7%)
Vietnamese 22 (8.3%)
Multiethnic 15 (5.7%)
Birthplace
United States 203 (76.6%)
Other 62 (23.4%)
# of Years Residing in the US (non-US born) 9.22 (7.25)
Generation
First Generation 59 (22.3%)
Second Generation 179 (67.5%)
Third Generation 13 (4.9%)
Fourth Generation 10 (3.8%)
Above Fourth 4 (1.5%)
Family Structure
Intact 228 (86.7%)
Divorced 23 (8.7%)
Remarried 3 (1.1%)
Other 9 (3.4%)
Years of Education (Father) 11.48 (4.84)
Years of Education (Mother) 9.63 (4.31)
a
reported as M(SD) or n (valid %) unless otherwise noted
37
Excluding the GPA variable, the response rate for the rest of the survey questions was
quite high (ranging 88-100%).
The largest groups of Asian ethnicities who participated in this study were
Chinese (n = 113, 42.6%), Korean (n =42, 15.8%), Taiwanese (n = 39, 14.7%),
Vietnamese (n = 22, 8.3%), Japanese (n = 19, 7.2%), and Indian (n =15, 5.7%). A
majority of students (n = 179, 67.5%) indicated that they were second-generation Asian
American college students. The majority of participants (n = 228, 86.7%) also indicated
coming from an intact two-parent household. The income of the participants was fairly
evenly split across the 6 categories. The participants may be considered somewhat
affluent, as the most frequent responses was the highest value (> $150,000 chosen by
22.4% of the participants), and the lower category was the least frequently chosen (<
$25,000 chosen by 11.0% of the participants).
Instruments
As shown in Appendix A, students were provided an informed consent form prior
to participating in the survey and were notified that all survey responses would remain
confidential. The survey itself was divided into five sections: 1) Demographic and
background information (Appendix B); 2) Acculturation level (Appendix C); 3)
Intergenerational relations (Appendix D); 4) Self-efficacy (Appendix E); and 5) Sense of
belonging in the institution (Appendix F). The instruments utilized for this study are
described in detail below.
Acculturation. The independent variable of acculturation was assessed by using
the Asian American Multidimensional Scale (AAMAS) developed by Chung et al.
38
(2004). The AAMAS was developed specifically for the purpose of evaluating Asian
Americans’ acculturation level and its relationship to psychological functioning (Chung
et al., 2004). The uniqueness of AAMAS is, according to Chung et al., its ease of use
across multiple Asian ethnic groups (one of the scales, culture of origin, allows readers
not to mention the specific ethnicity) and its inclusion of a pan-ethnic Asian American
dimension. Moreover, unlike other instruments that are based on a unidimensional mode
to measure acculturation, the AAMAS allows one to assess acculturation to both the
culture of origin and the host culture independently. Regarding the criterion-related
validity of AAMAS, Chung et al. (2004) assert that, “Increase in generational status was
associated with diminished adherence to culture of origin” (p. 78). One could expect,
then, that the AAMAS-CO negatively correlates to generational status.
The AAMAS is divided into three subscales for gaining a more accurate measure
of each culture: AAMAS Culture of Origin (AAMAS-CO); AAMAS Asian American
(AAMAS-AA); and AAMAS European American (AAMAS-EA). Fifteen items on a 6-
point Likert-type scale measure the dimensions of cultural behavior, cultural identity, and
cultural knowledge. Scales range from not very well to very well. In terms of reliability,
the internal reliability in Chung et al. (2004) showed that coefficient alphas for the
AAMAS-CO, AAMAS-AA, and AAMAS-EA were .89, .83, and .81, respectively. The
intended/ appropriate population for the AAMAS was the Asian American population,
with emphasis on within-group differences (heterogeneity of the Asian American
population). The AAMAS has also been previously conducted as an instrument for
college-aged populations.
39
Similarly to a study conducted by Wu (2008), in this study only the two scales of
AAMAS-CO and AAMAS-EA were included in order to measure acculturation to one’s
Asian culture and to European American culture. An adequate alpha value was obtained
for both the culture of origin (Asian) cultural dimension (α=0.87) as well as the European
American cultural dimension (α=.84), with single item deletions making negligible
improvements to the scales. These data replicate findings previously reported by Chung
et al. (2004). As a result, both subscales were utilized without modification.
Intergenerational Conflicts. In order to measure intergenerational conflicts, the
Intergenerational Conflict Inventory (ICI) by Chung (2001) was chosen. While other
established family measures such as the Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos,
1986), the Family Assessment Device (Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1983), and Family
Adaptability and Cohesion Scale III (Olson, Portner, &Lavee, 1985) focus on family
process (Chung, 2001), ICI focuses on specific patterns of intergenerational conflicts
between Asian American adolescents/young adults and their parents. The items were
developed on the basis of Erikson’s (1963) psychological stages and of the literature on
culturally relevant and age-appropriate issues affecting the adolescent’s relationship to
the family (Chung, 2001). Erikson’s psychological stages describe development that
occurs throughout the lifespan. Related to ICI, adolescence and young adulthood
psychosocial stages were used as a framework, which focus on the development of a
sense of self and meaningful relationships with other people, particularly with parents or
other family members related to ICI.
40
The ICI consists of a total of 24 items, using a 6-point Likert-type scale that
ranges from no conflict over this issue to a lot of conflict over this issue. The subscales
number three: Family Expectation (ICI-Fe, 11 items), Education and Career (ICI-EC, 10
items), and Dating and Marriage (ICI-DM, 3 items). In terms of reliability of the ICI,
Chung reported coefficient alphas of .86 for ICI-FE, .88 for ICI-EC, and .84 for ICI-DM.
This instrument was developed for use with Asian American adolescents/young adults.
All three subscales of the Intergenerational Conflict Inventory (Family
Expectations, Education & Career, and Dating & Marriage) were examined in this study.
Replicating findings reported by Chung (2001), alpha values were uniformly high across
Family Expectations (α = .86), Education & Career (α = .93), and Dating & Marriage (α
= .91). In each instance, single-item deletions made either no or negligible improvements.
Sense of belonging in the institution. For this independent variable, the Sense of
Belonging Scale adapted by Hurtado and Carter (1997) was used. Hurtado and Carter
(1997) introduced the concept of “sense of belonging” because the existing integration
theory by Tinto (1993) was not appropriate for Latino students, who belonged to one of
the most racially and ethnically underrepresented populations. Hurtado and Carter
maintained that Tinto’s (1993) integration theory tends to attribute students’ departure
from higher education institutions to individual students’ responsibility more than to
institutional shortcomings. The construct of "sense of belonging" represents, then, greater
awareness of the interplay between individual students and the institution (Johnson et al.,
2007). Moreover, Hurtado and Carter assert that, “studying sense of belonging allows
researchers to assess which forms of social interaction (academic and social) further
41
enhance students’ affiliation and identity with their colleges” (p. 328). Hurtado and
Carter’s study used a measure of sense of belonging to determine the extent to which
students identified themselves as part of the campus community, felt they were members
of the campus community (Johnson et al., 2007).
For reliability, Hurtado and Carter (1997) reported internal consistency (Alpha) of
.94 for Sense of Belonging in the institution. Hurtado and Carter’s Sense of Belonging
Scale originally was adapted from Bollen and Hoyle’s (1990) first dimension of
“perceived cohesion.” This instrument was developed for use with Latino college
students. Alpha for the sense of belonging scale was found to be quite high (α= .97)
suggesting that the scale may include some redundancy of items. However, given that
single item deletions failed to substantively reduce the value for alpha, that redundancy of
the questions was considered unlikely to alter the questions’ predictive utility, and that
the scale had been previously validated, it was decided to retain all items for the present
study.
Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was a dependent variable and measured by the College
Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI) developed by Solberg et al. (1998). Solberg et al. (1993)
developed the CSEI to more fully understand the role of self-efficacy on students’
adjustment to college, rather than limiting self-efficacy to only one aspect of the college
experience (e.g., academics). The CSEI would serve as a measure of self-efficacy for the
broader college experience.
CSEI is a 20-item measure of three scales: course, roommate, and social self-
efficacy. As Solberg et al. (1993) state, “The college self-efficacy items were designed to
42
address episodes common to all students… Much of the episodic experiences at college
are not culture-specific but are expected to play a role in college adjustment” (p. 84).
Despite some similarity between the roommate and social subscales, since they are both
social in nature, the roommate subscale focuses more on social interactions with people
with whom the participants lived (e.g., “Get along with others you live with”), while the
social subscale is mostly specific to interactions in the classroom or with university staff
(e.g., “Participate in class discussion”).
For the Reliability of CSEI, Solberg et al. (1997) reported Cronbach’s coefficient
for the total scale score of .91. (Course, roommate, and social self-efficacy items scored
.86, .89, and .79, respectively.). This instrument was developed for use with all college
students.
All three subscales of the CSEI (course, roommate, and social self-efficacy) were
examined in this study. Replicating findings reported by Solberg et al. (1997), alpha was
found to be adequate for roommate (α = .82), social (α = .88), and course self-efficacy (α
= .89). In each instance single-item deletions made either no or negligible improvements
to the overall scales, and thus the subscales were utilized without modification.
Procedure
The investigator for this study requested from the Asian American student
services office on campus that the online survey be sent out via e-mail to Asian American
undergraduate students. The online survey was also sent out via e-mail to Asian
American students who lived in a certain residential complex at the university. All
undergraduate levels, including freshmen, were surveyed to provide a representative data
43
sample. A brief description of the survey, a link to the survey, and a notice on
confidentiality were included in the email. Students participating in the online survey
were provided with an informed consent form notifying them of the purpose of the study,
procedures for completion, potential risks and benefits, confidentiality, and rights as
participants. To maintain confidentiality of the participants, only the primary investigator
for this study was granted access to the data. All identifying information from the survey
was kept in a separate location from survey responses. The average time to complete the
survey was approximately 10 minutes. As an incentive for completing the survey,
students were given opportunity to enter a raffle for an iPod or five gift cards for the
university bookstore.
44
Chapter IV
Results
The following chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the results of the
study, including discussions of means, standard deviations, intercorrelations of all
measured variables, and analyses of the research questions.
Intercorrelations
Pearson product correlation analyses were conducted to examine the relationships
between demographic variables (such as sex, age, years in the United States, and
generational status), along with acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of
belonging, GPA, and self-efficacy. Results are summarized in Table 2.
Female students were associated with higher family conflict regarding dating (r =
.15, p < 0.05). The number of years the student had resided in the United States inversely
correlated to his or her culture of origin (r = -.38, p < 0.001), while positively associated
with European American culture (r = .41, p < .001). The number of years in the United
States also correlated significantly with generation (r = .43, p < .001), as well as all three
subscales of intergenerational conflicts, including family expectation (r = .20, p < .01),
education and career (r = .13, p < .05), and dating and marriage (r = .18, p < .01). The
number of years in the US, however, negatively correlated with GPA ( r = -.22, p < .05).
The results of the relationship between generation and acculturation show, as one
would expect, that students who belonged to later (more recent) immigrant generations
related more to European American culture (r = .19, p < .01) and less to their country of
origin (r = -.44. p < .001). Students’ GPA was inversely associated with European
45
46
American culture (r = -23, p < .05) and intergenerational conflicts over education and
career (r = -23, p < .05). Intergenerational conflicts from family expectation are
negatively associated with AAMAS culture of origin. AAMAS European American
culture was related to all three subscales of College Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI) and
sense of belonging. As one would expect, all three subscales of Intergenerational Conflict
Inventory (ICI) were moderately to strongly related. The intergenerational conflict over
grades was negatively associated with self-efficacy in one’s courses. Students’ sense of
belonging was also positively associated with all three subscales of College Self-Efficacy
measures. Finally, the two acculturation measures did not appear to be correlated. The
mean, standard deviations, and correlations of all of the measured variables are presented
in Table 2.
Gender Differences Between Major Measured Variables
In order to determine the relationship of gender to reported levels of acculturation
(2 subscales), intergenerational conflict (3 subscales), and self-efficacy (3 subscales), a
series of independent sample t-tests was conducted. To adjust for the large family-wise
error rate resulting from this multiple testing, a Bonferroni correction was applied by
dividing the standard alpha level by the number of comparisons being made. Thus, results
were considered statistically reliable only if they had a significance of p ≤ 0.006 (.05/8
comparisons).
As shown in table 3, none of the observed differences between males and females
were found to be statistically significant at the 0.006 level of confidence. However, it is
worth noting that in the subscale of Dating and Marriage, the probability for gender
47
difference was .02, and that this finding is consistent with previous findings by the author
of the instrument (Chung, 2001).
Table 3
Summary of T-Test Comparisons by Gender (n = 109-264)
Mean (Standard
Deviation)
Variable Males Females
Test
Statistic
df sig
AAMAS – Culture of Origin 41.17 (9.09) 40.54 (9.21)
0.52 258 .61
AAMAS – European American
-0.35 255 .72
ICI – Family Expectations 23.62 (9.83) 25.84 (10.18)
-1.65 257 .10
ICI – Education & Career 28.57 (11.88) 28.88 (13.77)
-0.19 177.65 .85
ICI – Dating & Marriage 7.57 (4.31) 9.07 (4.81)
-2.40 158 .02
CSEI – Course 50.71 (10.61) 51.95 (10.98)
-0.86 262 .39
CSEI – Roommate 32.22 (5.70) 32.83 (5.64)
-0.82 261 .42
CSEI – Social 63.94 (15.41) 60.99 (15.21)
1.45 262 .15
Sense of Belonging 21.55 (6.70) 22.42 (5.72)
-1.08 264 .28
Differences Between Major Measured Variables by Ethnicity
In order to determine the relationship of ethnicity on reported levels of
acculturation (2 subscales), intergenerational conflict (3 subscales), and self-efficacy (3
subscales) a series of one-way ANOVAs was conducted. To adjust for the large family-
wise error rate resulting from this multiple testing, a Bonferroni correction was applied
by dividing the standard alpha level by the number of comparisons being made. Thus,
results were considered statistically reliable only if they had a significance of p ≤ 0.006
(.05/8 comparisons).
As shown in table 4, statistically significant differences were detected among
seven of the measured variables. In order to establish significant group difference, post
hoc testing using Tukey’s HSD was conducted as follow-up to each of the seven
statistically significant results.
48
The results of the post hoc test revealed that Taiwanese students reported
significantly lower scores on their Culture of Origin than did Japanese students (p =
.025). For intergenerational conflicts over family expectation, Vietnamese students
reported significantly lower scores than did three other ethnic groups: Indian students (p
= .044), Japanese students (p = .004), and Korean students (p = .017).
Table 4
Summary of ANOVA Comparisons by Ethnicity
Variable
Test
Statistic df sig
AAMAS – Culture of Origin
2.376 6, 252 .030
AAMAS – European American
1.395 6, 249 .217
ICI – Family Expectations
3.411 6, 251 .003
ICI – Education & Career
4.182 6, 251 .001
ICI – Dating & Marriage
4.121 6, 252 .001
CSEI – Course
2.627 6, 256 .017
CSEI – Roommate
2.237 6, 255 .040
CSEI – Social
3.454 6, 256 .003
Sense of Belonging
2.130 6. 258 .050
For intergenerational conflicts over education and career, as well, Vietnamese
students reported significantly lower scores than did three other ethnic groups: Chinese (p
= .035), Indian (p = .003), and Japanese (p = .001). For intergenerational conflicts over
dating and marriage, Vietnamese students reported significantly lower scores than did
two other ethnic groups: Japanese (p = .003) and Korean (p < .001). However, in Course
Self-Efficacy, despite the significance of the overall test, only a single marginally
significant finding emerged during the post hoc test. Multiethnic students appeared to be
trending towards having lower scores than Japanese students, though this difference
failed to meet the .05 level of significance (p = .057). In Roommate Self-Efficacy,
49
multiethnic students reported significantly higher scores than three of the other groups:
Chinese (p = .036), Japanese (p = .013), and Korean (p = .050). Finally, in Social Self-
Efficacy, multiethnic students reported significantly higher scores than Korean students
(p = .005).
Analyses of Research Questions
Research Question 1: Do ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts,
and sense of belonging in the institution predict GPA among Asian American
undergraduates?
In order to determine whether students’ level of acculturation, ethnicity, gender,
intergenerational conflicts, or sense of belonging in their institution predicts GPA, a
hierarchical linear regression modeling was conducted. As ethnicity was dummy-coded
into 6 separate variables, it was decided a priori to enter the ethnicity variables as a
single block in the first step of the regression model to ensure that all 6 items were
entered. In the absence of a guiding theory as to the order of entry of the remaining
predictors, all remaining predictors were entered in a second block using a stepwise
procedure in order to minimize the risk of type I and II errors (see Table 5).
The results for GPA revealed that ethnicity did not serve as a statistically
significant predictor of GPA. After controlling for ethnicity, intergenerational conflict
over education and career predicted 6% of the remaining variability observed in students’
GPAs. The students who had lower intergenerational conflict over education and career
tended to have higher GPA. After controlling for ethnicity and intergenerational conflict
50
over education and career, gender predicted an additional 3% of the variability observed
in students’ GPAs. Female students had higher GPAs than male students.
Table 5
Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of Acculturation,
Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, Sense of Belonging, and Gender on GPA (n = 99)
Variable B SE B β
sig
Block 4 (final model)
Ethnicity
a
Indian -.262 .164 -.160 .113
Japanese .374 .246 .147 .113
Korean -.238 .097 -.256 .016
Multiethnic -.184 .139 -.131 .191
Taiwanese .006 .108 .005 .959
Vietnamese -.067 .113 -.063 .555
ICI Educ -.007 .003 -.264 .012
Gender .152 .075 .198 .045
Note. R
2
= .087 for Step 1 (p = .202); ∆R
2
= .061 for Step 2 (p = .013); ∆R
2
= .031 for Step 3 (p = .045)
a
Reference category: Chinese
Research Question 2: Do ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts,
and sense of belonging in the institution predict self-efficacy among Asian American
undergraduates?
In order to determine whether students’ level of acculturation, ethnicity,
gender, intergenerational conflicts, or sense of belonging in their institution predicts self-
efficacy in three domains (Course, Roommate, & Social), three hierarchical linear
regression models were examined. As ethnicity was dummy-coded into 6 separate
variables, it was decided a priori to enter the ethnicity variables as a single block in the
first step of each model to ensure that all 6 items were entered. In the absence of a
guiding theory as to the order of entry of the remaining predictors, all remaining
51
predictors were entered in a second block using a stepwise procedure in order to
minimize the risk of type I and II errors (see Tables 6-8).
Social Self-efficacy. Results for the self-efficacy subscale of Social Self-Efficacy
revealed that the block of dummy-coded ethnicity variables as a whole predicted 3% of
the variability observed in reported Social Self-Efficacy scores. However, none of the
individual ethnicity terms differed from that of Chinese (the reference group). After
controlling for ethnicity, acculturation to European American culture predicted an
additional 7% of the remaining variability in reported Social Self-Efficacy scores. Results
of this analysis suggested that Asian American students who were highly acculturated
reported higher levels of Social Self-Efficacy.
After controlling for ethnicity, Sense of Belonging predicted an additional 21.2%
of the remaining variability in reported Social Self-Efficacy scores. Those with higher
Sense of Belonging reported higher levels of Social Self-Efficacy.
Table 6
Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of Acculturation,
Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and Gender on Social Self-Efficacy (n = 244)
Variable B SE B β sig
Block 4 (final model)
Ethnicity
a
Indian 4.091 3.815 .060 .285
Japanese -3.808 3.395 -.063 .263
Korean -1.975 2.445 -.047 .420
Multiethnic 3.691 3.718 .056 .322
Taiwanese 2.184 2.503 .051 .384
Vietnamese .794 3.409 .013 .816
Sense of Belonging 1.108 .141 .442 .001
AAMAS European American .461 .133 .193 .001
Gender -4.478 1.794 -.137 .013
Note. R
2
= .030 for Step 1 (p = .039); ∆R
2
= .212 for Step 2 (p < .001); ∆R
2
= .032 for Step 3 (p = .001);
∆R
2
= .016 (p = .013)
a
Reference category: Chinese
52
After controlling for ethnicity and sense of belonging, acculturation to European
American culture predicted an additional 3% of the remaining variability in reported
Social Self-Efficacy scores. Those with higher acculturation reported higher levels of
Social Self-Efficacy. After controlling for ethnicity, sense of belonging, and acculturation
to European American culture, gender predicted an additional 2% of the variability
observed in subjects’ Social Self-Efficacy scores. Female students in this sample
experienced lower levels of Social Self-Efficacy than male students.
Roommate self-efficacy. Results for the self-efficacy subscale of Roommate
Social Self-Efficacy revealed that the block of dummy-coded ethnicity variables as a
whole predicted 3% of the variability observed in reported Roommate Self-Efficacy
scores. However, the only ethnicity category found to differ from that of Chinese (the
reference group) was the category of Multiethnic. Multiethnic students in the sample
appear to have had higher levels of Roommate Self-Efficacy than Chinese students. After
controlling for ethnicity, acculturation to European American culture predicted an
additional 7% of the remaining variability in reported Roommate Self-Efficacy scores.
Those who were highly acculturated reported higher levels of Roommate Self-Efficacy.
After controlling for ethnicity and acculturation to European American culture,
intergenerational conflict over education and career predicted an additional 1% of the
variability observed in students’ Roommate Self-Efficacy scores. Those with higher
levels of intergenerational conflict over education reported lower levels of Roommate
Self-Efficacy.
53
Table 7
Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of Acculturation,
Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and Gender on Roommate Self-Efficacy (n = 243)
Variable B SE B β sig
Block 4 (final model)
Ethnicity
a
Indian .695 1.388 .028 .500
Japanese -.600 1.238 -.028 .628
Korean -.062 .900 -.004 .945
Multiethnic 2.702 1.319 .117 .042
Taiwanese .576 .922 .037 .533
Vietnamese .746 1.233 .034 .546
Sense of Belonging .392 .051 .434 .001
AAMAS European American .169 .049 .195 .001
Note. R
2
= .030 for Step 1 (p = .038); ∆R
2
= .213 for Step 2 (p < .001); ∆R
2
= .033 for Step 3 (p = .001)
a
Reference category: Chinese
After controlling for ethnicity, sense of belonging predicted an additional 21% of
the remaining variability in reported Roommate Self-Efficacy scores. Those with a higher
sense of belonging reported higher levels of Roommate Self-Efficacy. After controlling
for ethnicity and sense of belonging, acculturation to European American culture
predicted an additional 3% of the remaining variability in reported Roommate Self-
Efficacy scores. Those with higher acculturation reported higher levels of Roommate
Self-Efficacy.
Course self-efficacy. The block of dummy-coded ethnicity variables as a whole
predicted 5% of the variability observed in reported Course Self-Efficacy scores. Korean
students reported lower self-efficacy than Chinese students (the reference group), while
multiethnic students had higher levels than Chinese students. After controlling for
ethnicity, intergenerational conflict over education and career predicted an additional 4%
of the remaining variability in students’ Course Self-Efficacy scores. Those with less
54
educational conflict reported higher course self-efficacy. After controlling for ethnicity
and intergenerational conflict over education and career, acculturation to European
American culture predicted an additijonal 2% of the remaining variability in students’
Course Self-Efficacy scores. Those with higher levels of acculturation to European
American culture reported higher levels of Course Self-Efficacy.
Table 8
Summary of Hierarchical Linear Regression Modeling of Acculturation,
Intergenerational Conflicts, Ethnicity, and Gender on Course Self-Efficacy (n = 244)
Variable B SE B β
sig
Block 4 (final model)
Ethnicity
a
Indian 4.229 2.868 .087 .142
Japanese -1.340 2.571 -.031 .603
Korean -3.373 1.835 -.113 .067
Multiethnic 5.585 2.699 .123 .040
Taiwanese 2.577 1.873 .084 .170
Vietnamese 1.912 2.571 .045 .458
Sense of Belonging .622 .104 .351 .001
ICI-education -.146 .050 -.177 .004
Note. R
2
= .052 for Step 1 (p = .005); ∆R
2
= .130 for Step 2 (p < .001); ∆R
2
= .026 for Step 3 (p = .004)
a
Reference category: Chinese
After controlling for ethnicity, sense of belonging predicted an additional 13% of
the remaining variability in students’ Course Self-Efficacy scores. As to be expected,
students who have a higher sense of belonging reported higher Course Self-Efficacy.
After controlling for ethnicity and sense of belonging, intergenerational conflict over
education and career predicted an additional 3% of the remaining variability in students’
Course Self-Efficacy scores. Those who had less intergenerational conflict over
education and career reported higher Course Self-Efficacy.
Research Question 3: Does self-efficacy predict GPA among Asian American
undergraduates?
55
In order to examine the relationship between three domains of self-efficacy and
students’ GPAs, simple linear regression modeling was conducted. In the absence of a
guiding theory as to the order of entry for the self-efficacy measures, all three were
entered using a stepwise procedure in order to minimize the risk of type I and II errors
(see Table 9).
Table 9
Summary of Stepwise Regression Modeling of Course, Roommate, & Social Self-Efficacy
on GPA (n = 106)
Variable B SE B β sig
Block 1
Self Efficacy, Course .008 .003 .220 .023
Block 2
Self Efficacy, Course .013 .004 .354 .001
Self Efficacy, Roommate -.017 .007 -.276 .011
Note. R
2
= .039 for Step 1 (p = .023); ∆R
2
= .050 (p = .011).
The results revealed that two of the three domains of self-efficacy emerged as statistically
significant predictors of student GPA. While the positive relationship observed between
course self-efficacy and GPA is an expected one, the relationship between roommate
self-efficacy and GPA is less clear. Students who reported lower self-efficacy regarding
their interactions with their roommates tended to have higher GPAs.
56
CHAPTER V
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to conduct an empirical investigation of the
relationship between the critical factors of ethnicity, gender, acculturation,
intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution, on the one hand, and
academic success among Asian American college students, on the other. The results of
this study suggest that acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging
can be used as important variables to understand the influences on Asian American
undergraduates’ academic success. The following chapter provides a summary and
discussion of the results, as well as theoretical and applied implications. Limitations of
this study as well as possible directions of future research will also discussed.
Discussion of Results
Relationship between ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts,
sense of belonging and GPA
This study sought to explore whether ethnicity, gender, acculturation,
intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging predicted Asian American college
students’ GPA. It was hypothesized that students who are highly acculturated, experience
fewer intergenerational conflicts, and hold a higher sense of belonging would likely
achieve a higher GPA.
A compelling finding of this study is that female Asian American students
showed higher GPAs than male students. According to Portes and Rumbaut (2001),
cultural and gender dynamics within immigrant and refugee families change as children
57
acculturate more readily and rapidly to mainstream American culture than do their
parents, and as women gain more education and independence after arriving in this
country. Brandon (1991) studied such Asian American gender differences and suggested
that, “The contrast between the status and opportunities of Asian-American immigrant
girls (or the daughters of immigrants) in their native countries and the status and
opportunities available in the United States may serve as a potent motivator” (p. 57).
Students who are motivated are more likely to perform better academically, as has been
well demonstrated (Burton, Lydon, D’Alessandro & Koestner, 2006).
Interestingly, however, female students in this study also reported higher family
conflict over dating. This result confirms previous research by Chung (2001) that found
that Asian American female college students reported more family conflict about dating
and marriage issues than male students. One can speculate that acculturation plays a
major role in intergenerational conflict between immigrant parents and their children in
general, but especially with daughters. Portes and Rumbaut’s (2001) dissonant
acculturation concept also supports this finding of higher family conflict over dating and
marriage among Asian American female college students, in which parents’ cultural
expectations (family embeddedness or collectivism) of their daughters contrast with
daughters’ cultural expectations (autonomy or individualism) of their parents more so
than is the case with sons. As Chung, Kim, and Abreu (2004) state, “Acculturation is a
complex process with each cultural dimension having a differentiated pattern of
relationships to specific types of intergenerational conflict” (p. 78). While expectations of
obedience and some aspects of strictness can also be viewed as expressions of concern,
58
care, involvement, and/or fostering family harmony in Asian American families (Lau &
Cheung, 1987), for example, the daughters of immigrant families are especially prone to
the struggles of “straddling two worlds” (Bankston et al., 1997).
Another finding for GPA is that students who experience lower levels of
intergenerational conflict over education and career tend to achieve higher GPAs,
confirming previous studies that have also demonstrated the direct impact of parent-child
conflicts on academic performance (Ying & Han, 2007; Cheung & Nguyen, 2001;
Nguyen-Chawkins, 1997). The present study’s findings also validate research by Ying et
al. (1999) showing that most Asian American students maintain a strong respect for their
parents and family elders; consequently, family embeddedness is a critical factor in Asian
American students’ academic success. Kao and Tienda (1995) also suggest that
immigrant and generational status could explain why Asian American students were
achieving high-test scores and grades: the higher educational aspirations and expectations
of their culture of origin. As Chen and Stevenson (1995) have shown, Asian parents,
reflecting Asian culture in general, are strongly supportive of education, and young
people are expected to do well academically and to attend college. Furthermore, the link
between family interdependence and career/personal motivation is consistent with
research on adolescents from immigrant families showing the endorsement of family
obligations to be associated with academic motivation (Fuligni, 1997; Fuligni & Tseng,
1999). In other words, family interdependence may be associated with a desire to do well
educationally, as a way to repay parents for sacrifices they made in immigrating to the
U.S. (Fuligni & Witkow, 2004; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez- Orozco, 1995).
59
Finally, the results of this study did not reveal that ethnicity serves as a statistically
significant predictor of GPA. However, this does not mean that there is no relationship
between the diversity of Asian American college students and GPA or academic
performance in general. The sample in this study was collected at a 4-year private
research university. According to The Chronicle Higher Education, only 6.2% of Asian
American college students are enrolled at 4-year private research universities and liberal
arts colleges (http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Are-the-Undergraduates-
/123916/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en). The sample of Asian American
undergraduates in this study, who attend a highly selective institution and thus can be
considered disproportionately successful academically, simply does not represent the
majority of Asian American undergraduates in the U.S. As the data showed in the
Chronicle of Higher Education survey, among the entire Asian American undergraduate
population, which is 5.9% of the total, close to half, 2.79%, is enrolled at a 2-year public
university. The publicly-available student profile of the university for this study, where
the Asian American undergraduate population was 24% as of 2010--much higher than the
figures of 13% and 6%, respectively, for Latino and Black students--presented no data to
demonstrate sub-group differences within a specific ethnicity and showed only
aggregated data for Latinos, Blacks, and Asian & Pacific Islanders. Furthermore, among
freshmen, nearly 97% of all undergraduates were full-time students. In contrast,
nationally the rates for exclusively full-time and mixed full-time or part-time freshmen
are 47.7% and16.9%, respectively.
Due to the characteristics of the institution in this study and to the fact of lower
60
postsecondary educational attainment among certain subgroups of Asian Americans, the
sample in this study is skewed because of the lack of responses from students belonging
to Southeast Asian subgroups such as Laotian, Hmong, and others. For instance,
according to Profile of Hmong Educational Attainment by Kou Yang, “Hmong in
California and Alaska are more likely to have reported having no schooling (the figure is
above 50 percent in both states) compared to the population elsewhere”
(http://hmongstudies.com/2000HmongCensusPublication.pdf.) In short, although the
results of this study do not indicate a connection between ethnicity and GPA, the
limitations of the sampled data mean that the results also do not disprove that certain
subgroups within Asian Americans are less academically successful.
Relationship between ethnicity, gender, acculturation, sense of belonging and
self-efficacy
This study also sought to explore whether ethnicity, gender, acculturation,
intergenerational conflicts and sense of belonging predicted the self-efficacy of Asian
American college students. It was hypothesized that students who were highly
acculturated, who had fewer conflicts with their parents, and who held a higher sense of
belonging would have higher self-efficacy. For this study, those with a higher sense of
belonging reported higher levels of all three subscales of self-efficacy. These findings
validate research by Goodenow (1993) that students’ sense of belonging and support is
significantly associated with academic outcomes and effort. Similarly, the research by
Hurtado and Carter (1997) suggest that, “The outcomes of students’ sense of belonging
may have more immediate effects on students’ behaviors, such as the quality of students’
61
social interactions, students’ selection of academic programs, and their use of support
services” (p. 341). Undoubtedly, a higher sense of belonging can facilitate students’
adjustment to college and hence enhance their academic motivation and performance.
According to Gloria and Ho (2003), although the relationship between self-
efficacy and academic performance has received research attention, the relationship
between self-efficacy and persistence has not been examined for Asian Americans.
Although the population of Asian American college students now exceeds well over one
million, as House (1997) states, there is lack of empirical evidence when examining the
factors that influence how Asian American students adjust to the university environment.
The results of the present study suggest indeed that greater attention paid to improving
Asian American college students’ sense of belonging in the institution may help facilitate
higher academic performance. This study also supports the consistent finding of several
studies that the “integrating experiences” of involvement, engagement, and affiliation
(i.e., sense of belonging) are central to students’ development and progress in college
(Astin, 1984, 1993; Pace, 1984; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Kuh et al., 2005, 2007).
Acculturation to European-American culture was also found to be a significant
predictor of self-efficacy for the subscales of social and roommate self-efficacy. It could
be expected that students who are highly acculturated in the “mainstream” culture tend to
have greater confidence in their ability to maintain harmonious relationships with their
roommates and to have fruitful social interactions with others. Thus this finding verifies
one of the two principles of Berry’s (1993) acculturation model, that of cultural contact-
participation, which stated that students who value and search for contact with those
62
outside their own group are more willing to participate in the larger society. The present
study’s results also can be seen to question bidimensional models of acculturation that
measure orientation to the host culture and culture of origin independently. Rousicar-
Sodowsky and Maestas (2000) assert that culturally distinct groups are more prone to
struggle with the heavy task of deciding what aspects of their culture of origin and of the
host culture to incorporate into their system of belief, attitude, behaviors, and self-
identity. Thus, one can expect that Asian American college students who are highly
acculturated to European-American culture tend to adjust better to a college environment
that requires certain behaviors and attitudes expected by the host society. However, the
two scales of the bidimensional model are orthogonal and do not necessarily represent
opposite poles of a single dimension. The recent report from the National Education
Association confirms the appropriateness of a bidimensional model by reporting that the
most successful AAPI students adopt aspects of mainstream American norms and
simultaneously adhere to aspects of their culture of origin, such as language and culture.
The report describes this specialized strategy as “accommodation and acculturation
without assimilation” (2005, p. 6). The findings of the present study, however--while not
contradicting the validity of the bidimensional model--reinforce the significance of
acculturation to the “mainstream” culture in measuring certain modes of socialization in
the college environment.
Students who had fewer intergenerational conflicts over education and career also
reported higher course self-efficacy. As noted above, the findings of this study hence
support previous studies indicating that conflict in parent-child relationships directly
63
affects academic performance (Ying & Han, 2007; Cheung & Nguyen, 2001; Nguyen-
Chawkins, 1997), and that a stronger endorsement of family interdependence is
associated with higher academic motivation among youths from immigrant families
(Tseng, 2004).
Relationship between GPA and self-efficacy
This study also sought to examine the relationship between GPA and self-efficacy
among Asian American college students. It was hypothesized that students who had
higher levels of self-efficacy would likely to achieve higher GPA. The results of this
study confirmed the positive relationship between course self-efficacy and GPA.
According to Valentine, DuBois, and Cooper (2004), self-efficacy has become a vital
concept in education and a main predictor of educational achievement in a variety of
disciplines. Similarly, Zimmerman, Bandura, and Martinez-Pons (1992) also assert that
one’s self-efficacy affects learning and academic achievement. In the education arena,
research shows students’ self-efficacy beliefs influence behaviors such as choice of tasks,
effort, persistence, and achievement (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1997). And research by
Multon, Brown, and Lent (1991) verified a positive, statistically significant relationship
between self-efficacy belief, on the one hand, and academic performance and persistence,
on the other.
Additional Findings
A finding of this study revealed that the number of years a student had resided in
the United States inversely correlated to acculturation to their culture of origin, while
positively associated with acculturation to European-American culture. The number of
64
the years in the United States for the student significantly correlated to all three subscales
of intergenerational conflict: family expectation, education and career, and dating and
marriage. This indicates that students who had lived in the U.S longer might be
considered to have faced more cultural discrepancy with their immigrant parents, unless
their parents were also born in the U.S or came to the U.S. at an early age. One can
speculate that these significant correlations were due to the gap between the students’
home culture (culture of origin) and school culture, or the culture outside of home,
including peers, media, etc. (the new culture). Indeed, another finding is that Asian
American students of later generations related more to European-American culture and
less to their country of origin.
In fact, only two variables were related to GPA: acculturation to European-
American culture, and family conflict over education and career. Not surprisingly,
intergenerational conflicts over family expectation are inversely associated with AAMAS
culture of origin. Interestingly, the results of the current study reveal that Vietnamese
students reported significantly lower scores on the all three subscales of intergenerational
conflicts compared with other ethnic subgroups such as Chinese, Indian, Korean, and
Japanese, although this did not translate into discernible differences for Vietnamese
students in GPA or self-efficacy. This study undertook a comparison of the generational
composition (in terms of immigrant status) between Vietnamese students and four other
Asian ethnic groups. The initial assumption was that Vietnamese students in this study
were mostly of the first generation. However, only 14% of Vietnamese respondents in
65
this study were of the first generation, a similar rate to multi-ethnic students and a much
lower rate than for Chinese and Korean respondents (see Table 10).
Table 10
Summary of Respondents by Ethnicity and Generation
Generation 1
st
(%) % 2
nd
(%) ratio of 3
rd
&
Total 1
st
to 2
nd
above (%)
Japanese 20 1 (5) 4 (20) .25 15 (75)
Multi-ethnic 18 2 (11.1) 15 (83.3) .13 1 (5.6)
Vietnamese 22 3 (13.6) 19 (86.4) .16 0
Indian 15 5 (33.3) 10 (66.7) .50 0
Korean 42 10 (23.8) 30 (71.4) .33 2 (4.8)
Chinese 119 30 (25.2) 80 (67.2) .38 9 (7.6)
Thus, generational differences between first-generation parents and second-
generation students do not sufficiently account for the low level of inter-generational
conflict among Vietnamese respondents. However, it is worth noting that the Vietnamese
students in this study should be considered to represent an academically successful
portion of Vietnamese students in general. The 2000 Census Public Use Microdata
Samples showed that Vietnamese Americans only have a college degree attainment rate
of 20%, while Asian Americans as a whole have a 42.9% rate of college degree
attainment.
Implications
The results of this study hold a number of important implications for researchers,
parents, administrators, and other educators in their efforts to gain a better understanding
of academic performance among Asian American college students. It is clear, from the
results of this study, that acculturation, intergenerational conflicts over education and
career, and sense of belonging in the institution must be considered as critical factors
when developing an understanding of academic success among diverse Asian American
66
undergraduates. Yet despite the continuing discourse on the importance of the first two
variables, few empirical studies have actually been conducted on the specific role of
sense of belonging on Asian American college students’ academic success. As House
(1997) states, there is in general a paucity of empirical studies examining the factors that
influence adaptation of Asian Americans to the university environment. As the Asian
American student population continues to grow in number, diversity, and complexity
(Barnes & Bennett, 2000), further research and development are needed in this area.
Educators, student affairs administrators, parents, and mental health professionals
must also consider the familial and cultural factors that influence the acculturation
process, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging among Asian American
college students. Educators should query Asian American students about the specific
roles that their family and culture play in their lives, as well as about the expectations that
may or may not be placed on them regarding academics. Based on such feedback,
assistance could be provided regarding ways to encourage healthy parent-child
relationships and discussions in order to bridge any debilitating cultural gaps that may
have formed before students come to college, and that continue to adversely affect their
academic performance.
Given that this study confirms that Asian American college students’ sense of
belonging is positively related to their academic success, clearly more research on this
relationship is needed. In order to conduct further research in this area, Asian American
students’ sense of belonging should be understood not just as an adjustment to the
institutional environment, but rather in the context of more complicating factors, such as
67
acculturation discrepancy between parents and students, obligations to fulfill filial piety
expectations, and the pressures of living up to the model minority image. As
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory shows, an individual’s social ecology is
composed of a complex set of embedded structures that range from micro- to meso- to
exosystem, but “seldom is attention paid to the person’s behavior in more than one
setting or to the way in which relations between settings can affect what happens within
them” (p.18).
Even while employing a bidimensional acculturation model for this study, results
revealed that acculturation only to European American culture, but not to one’s culture of
origin, had a pronounced influence on self-efficacy--an indicator of academic success--
among Asian American college students. These findings, then, continue to show the
nuances of the complex process of acculturation for Asian Americans and invite more
research and analysis. Despite the importance of an immigrant family’s culture of origin,
social context might be more influential to Asian American students’ academic success
after all, according to the findings of the present study. Sue and Okazaki (1990), in fact,
argue that social context should be considered more critically than cultural values
because strong empirical evidence regarding the effect of Asian culture on academic
attainment in the Asian American population is lacking. In order to account for this
possibility while retaining the bidimensional model that sees acculturation to both
European-American culture and the culture of origin as independence scales, it might be
useful to examine the levels acculturation of the parents--how their ideas have changed
68
regarding familial, cultural, social, and educational values, and the influence of these
factors on intergenerational conflicts with their children.
Limitations of the Study
Several limitations of this study must be taken into consideration. As noted above,
the sample of responses from Southeast Asian students was insufficient to arrive at larger
conclusions about ethnicity differences or within group differences on academic
performance among Asian American college students as a whole. Similarly, the study
was limited to voluntary participants via email at one university. Students who
volunteered to take the survey may be different from those who did not and from others
at the university. Caution then should be taken before generalizing the findings to other
populations with a greater academic diversity among Asian Americans.
Another limitation of this study was that, given its use of a self-reporting survey,
the results relied on the students’ own ratings of their acculturation levels,
intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging in the institution. Because the survey
of students’ ratings on their sense of belonging in the institution was conducted at the
beginning of the school year, the first-year participants in this study had spent a relatively
short time at the institution--about two months. Similarly, a third limitation of this study
is that a certain number of students could not provide their GPA because they were
freshmen in their first semester.
A fourth limitation of this study, as suggested above, is that although much
research has emphasized the dissonant acculturation levels between parents and their
adolescents, this study examined only the students’ acculturation levels. As Chung (2001)
69
notes, “the level of acculturation of the adolescent may not be the most critical factor in
accounting for intergenerational conflict as much as the net difference in degree of
acculturation between parents and adolescents” (p. 384). Although it would have been
more complete to somehow collect the data of parents’acculturation levels and their own
ratings of intergenerational conflicts, this was not practically feasible.
Finally, although the results of this study revealed some important gender
differences on a couple of findings, female students were over-sampled, representing
nearly 70% of the survey’s respondents. Several scholars have recognized the
significance of gender differences in analyzing the Asian American population, but
relatively few studies have been conducted. It is hoped that the results of this study can
promote further research on gender differences among a diverse group of Asian
American students.
Conclusion
This study sought to contribute to the exploration of the critical factors affecting
today’s diverse Asian American college student population by investigating the
relationship between ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and
sense of belonging in the institution, on the one hand, and these students’ academic
performance, on the other. The results of this study revealed that acculturation,
intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging were significant predictors of
academic performance among Asian American college students. Specifically,
intergenerational conflicts over education and career were found to be important
influences on students’ GPA and higher course self-efficacy, while acculturation to
70
European-American culture was found to be a significant predictor of self-efficacy for the
subscales of social and roommate self-efficacy. Sense of belonging in the institution also
positively influenced all three subscales of self-efficacy, which suggests that higher sense
of belonging may help facilitate higher academic performance. Since there had been no
previous empirical research investigating this relationship among Asian American
students, these results demand that higher education institutions pay greater attention to
strengthening their students’ sense of belonging.
In addition, female students had higher GPAs than male students while also
reporting higher family conflict surrounding dating and marriage. Although the findings
on gender differences showed mixed results, a limited number of studies have considered
the impact of gender differences among Asian American adolescents (Chung, 2001).
Thus, this finding should facilitate future research that investigates the role of gender
differences in Asian Americans’ intergenerational conflicts with a more diverse sample
of Asian American students, as well as with a more balanced sample of female and male
students.
While some studies have investigated the various cultural and familial influences
on educational success among Asian American college students, this study provides a
unique opportunity for researchers and practitioners to gain an understanding of the
specific relationships between acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of
belonging in the institution on academic performance. In particular, the finding on the
relationship between sense of belonging in the institution and academic performance
could be considered a baseline for further research.
71
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79
APPENDIX A
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089
INFORMATION/FACTS SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
The Relationship of Ethnicity, Gender, Acculturation, Intergenerational Relations, and
Sense of Belonging in the Institution to Academic Success Among Asian American
Undergraduates
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to better understand the diversity of Asian American college
students and the influence of this diversity on their academic achievement. It specifically
seeks to understand the influences of ethnicity, acculturation, intergenerational conflict,
and sense of belonging to the institution on Asian Americans’ academic success.
PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
Participants will be asked to fill out an online survey.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
Upon completion of the online survey, each participant’s identification code will be
placed in a raffle. 5 winners drawn from the raffle will each receive a gift card for the
USC Bookstore, and one participant will receive an iPod Touch.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The participants’ names, addresses, or other identifiable information will not be collected
in connection with this study. For identifying people for the raffle prizes, a code will be
given to each participant, which will be matched to a participant’s contact information
only.
INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Hyang (Helen) Chung
hyangchu@usc.edu; 213-327-5611
80
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier
Hall, Room 224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu
81
APPENDIX B
DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Please provide the following information:
1. Age _____
2. Sex ____Male ____Female
3. How many years of education do you have after high school? ___________
4. What is your racial/ethnic background (check all that apply)?
_____ Asian Indian _____ Cambodian _____ Chinese _____Filipino
_____ Hmong _____ Japanese _____ Korean _____ Laotian
_____ Taiwanese _____ Vietnamese _____ Pacific Islander
_____ Other Asian (specify) _______________________________________
5. In what country were you born? _________________________
6. How long have you lived in the U.S.? ___________ years
7. What generation are you?
____ 1st generation (if you are NOT born in the U.S.)
____ 2nd generation (if you are born in the U.S. but at least 1 parent is not)
____ 3rd generation (if at least one grandparent is born in the U.S.)
____ 4th generation (if at least one great-grandparent is born in the U.S.)
____ above 4th generation
8. What is your family structure?
____ Intact ____ Divorced
____ Remarried ____ Other
9. How would you describe the socioeconomic class background of your family?
_____ Working class _____ Upper middle class
_____ Lower middle class _____ Upper class
_____ Middle class
82
10. What is your annual family income?
_____ less than $25,000
_____ $25,001-50,000
_____ $50,001-75,000
_____ $75,001-100,000
_____ $100,001-150,000
_____ Over $150,000
11. How many years of education does your father have?
Note: Please complete this information based on the person who was most involved in
parenting you as a father, whether it be your biological father, stepfather, grandfather,
or some other significant father figure.
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22+
jr high high school college master’s advanced degree (M.D., J.D., Ph.D.)
12. How many years of education does your mother have?
Note: Please complete this information based on the person who was most involved in
parenting you as a mother, whether it be your biological mother, stepmother,
grandmother, or some other significant mother figure.
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22+
jr high high school college master’s advanced degree (M.D., J.D., Ph.D.)
13. Choice of major: _________________
14. Career choice/aspiration:_____________________
83
APPENDIX C
ASIAN AMERICAN MULTIDIMENSIONAL ACCULTURATION SCALE
CHUNG, KIM, & ABREU (2004)
Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the
number that best represents your view on each item.
Not very well Somewhat Very well
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. How well do speak the language of –
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
2. How well do you understand the language of –
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
3. How well do you read and write in the language of --
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
4. How often do you listen to music or look at movies and magazines from
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
5. How much do you like the food of
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
6. How often do you eat the food of -
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
84
7. How knowledgeable are you about the history of -
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
8. How knowledgeable are you about the culture and traditions of -
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
9. How much do you practice the traditions and keep the holidays of -
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
10. How much do you identify with -
a. Your own Asian culture of origin 1 2 3 4 5 6
b. English 1 2 3 4 5 6
85
APPENDIX D
INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICT INVENTORY (ICI)
CHUNG (2001)
Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the
number that best represents your view on each item.
No conflict over this issue A lot of conflict over this issue
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Lack of communication with your parents 1 2 3 4 5 6
2. Your desire for greater independence and autonomy 1 2 3 4 5 6
3. Following cultural traditions 1 2 3 4 5 6
4. Pressure to learn one’s own Asian language 1 2 3 4 5 6
5. Expectations based on being male or female 1 2 3 4 5 6
6. Expectations based on birth order 1 2 3 4 5 6
7. Family relationships being too close 1 2 3 4 5 6
8. Family relationships being too distant 1 2 3 4 5 6
9. How much time to spend with the family 1 2 3 4 5 6
10. How much to help around the house 1 2 3 4 5 6
11. How much time to help out in the family business 1 2 3 4 5 6
12. How much time to spend on studying 1 2 3 4 5 6
13. How much time to spend on recreation 1 2 3 4 5 6
14. How much time to spend on sports 1 2 3 4 5 6
15. How much time to spend on practicing music 1 2 3 4 5 6
16. Importance of academic achievement 1 2 3 4 5 6
17. Emphasis on materialism and success 1 2 3 4 5 6
18. Which school to attend 1 2 3 4 5 6
19. What to major in college 1 2 3 4 5 6
20. Which career to pursue 1 2 3 4 5 6
21. Being compared to others 1 2 3 4 5 6
22. When to begin dating 1 2 3 4 5 6
23. Whom to date 1 2 3 4 5 6
24. Whom to marry 1 2 3 4 5 6
86
APPENDIX E
COLLEGE SELF-EFFICACY INVENTORY (CSEI)
SOLBERG,O’BRIEN,VILLAREAL, KENNER, & DAVIS (1993)
The following 20 items concern your confidence in various aspects of college. Using the
scale below, please indicate how confident you are as student at USC that you could
successfully complete the following tasks. If you are extremely confident, mark a 10. If
you are not at all confident, mark a 1. If you are more or less confident, find the number
between 1 and 10 that best describes you.
Not at all Extremely
Confident Confident
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Make new friends at college. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. Divide chores with others you live with. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. Talk to university staff. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. Manage time effectively. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. Ask a question in class. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. Participate in class discussions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. Get a date when you want one. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. Research a term paper. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. Do well on your exams. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10. Join a student organization. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11. Talk to your professors. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
12. Join an intramural sports team. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
13. Ask a professor a question. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
14. Take good class notes. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
15. Get along with others you live with. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
16. Divide space in your residence. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
17. Understand your textbooks. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
18. Keep up to date with your schoolwork. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
19. Write course papers. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20. Socialize with others you live with. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
87
APPENDIX F
SENSE OF BELONGING TO CAMPUS
HURTADO & CARTER (1997)
Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the
number that best represents your view on each item.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. I see myself as a part of the campus community.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. I feel that I am a member of the campus community.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. I feel a sense of belonging to the campus community.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Asset Metadata

Creator Chung, Hyang Helen (author)

Core Title The relationship of ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution to academic success among Asian American undergraduates

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 04/07/2011

Defense Date 03/09/2011

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag acculturation,Asian American,gender,immigration,intergenerational relations,OAI-PMH Harvest,sense of belonging,student affairs

Place Name California (states), USA (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Chung, Ruth, H. (committee chair), Clark, Ginger (committee member), Cole, Darnell (committee member)

Creator Email hyang92c@yahoo.com,hyangchu@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3724

Unique identifier UC1104028

Identifier etd-Chung-4428 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-442267 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3724 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Chung-4428.pdf

Dmrecord 442267

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Chung, Hyang Helen

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu