Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Gail Johnson
Keywords
african american women, campus involvement, campus life, chi-square test, co-curricular activities, college students, Douglass College, high school graduates, New Jersey, non-urban high schools, student affairs, student participation, urban high schools
Abstract
African American women at Douglass College do not seem to be involved in mainstream campus organizations and activities. It has been suggested the students who come from urban areas in New Jersey are less involved in co-curricular activities because of a lack of state funding. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between where African American Douglass women graduated from high school in New Jersey and their participation in co-curricular activities.
There was one research question for this study: Is there a relationship between student participation in co-curricular activities based upon whether the student graduated from an urban or non-urban high school in New Jersey? There were nine procedures used to draw from African American students (n = 253) at Douglass College.
To test the null hypothesis of no relationship between student participation in cocurricular activities based upon where students graduated from, a chi-square test of independence was used. The calculated value of the chi-square was 1.3323 and the critical value of the chi-square was 3.84 (df = 1 ). Because the calculated value of chi-square was less than the critical value, there was no significance at the p=.05 level. The results showed that the null hypothesis failed to be rejected.
It was concluded that there was no significant difference between African women at Douglas College who participated in co-curricular activities and graduated from urban or non-urban high schools in New Jersey. However, there is always room for improvement. Therefore, the overall recommendation was for student affairs practitioners to continue to develop strategies whereby African American students are involved in campus life.