1. Leslie Gutierrez PREDICTING COLLEGE ENROLLMENT FOR LATINAS Mentor: Jutta Heckhausen 16 May 2009

2. Introduction Research Question Objective Significance Literature Review Background Info Methods Quantitative Design Results Grades and Educational Expectations Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgments O UTLINE

3. I NTRODUCTION What factors facilitate or inhibit college enrollment for Latinas? What assists them in achieving academic success? Compared to Males? Compared to other ethnic groups?

4. O BJECTIVES To identify facilitatory and inhibitory factors for academic success by examining… Individual Resources Parental/Family Resources Sociocultural Resources To offer insights into the protective factors for Latinas in academic success and lead to combative strategies for the identified barriers

5. B ACKGROUND Latino students report lower levels educational aspirations compared to Asian, African American, and Caucasian students Latinos report lower rates of college attendance and completion than other ethnic groups Ethnic minority first-generation college students typically have poorer academic performance and higher dropout rates than other students

6. B ACKGROUND The lack of contextual resources such as peer support predicts poorer grades and adjustment Persistent levels of parental support of education were accompanied by elevations in GPA performance For Latinos academic achievement is linked both to individual- and family-level influences. However, Asian Americans have higher than average educational goals than Hispanic Americans

7. B ACKGROUND Latino students with greater psychological and family resources display greater academic achievement Women outperform males in academia attainment and success across all ethnicities  Amongst Latinas, this gender gap is smaller but still significant

8. M ETHODS

9. With over 1,082 subjects, the coded data from a longitudinal study spanned over 5 years on students from the Los Angeles Unified School District  We examined waves 1 & 2: Senior high school students One year after high school  The data sets included survey responses from five ethnic groups: European, East Asian, Latin, Africa American, and Other.

10. M ETHODS Through multinomial regressions and ANOVAs, analyses, we predicated college enrollment by investigating independent variables such as… Motivational/Personal factors Ex. Educational Expectations Parental Resources Ex. Parental Education Sociocultural Characters Ex. Gender roles and expectations Gender and Ethnicity acted as a moderators

11. R ESULTS

12. Grades and Educational Expectations were independently significant across gender and ethnic groups Grades were significant when controlled Educational expectations are influenced by parental warmth, parental education, and parental expectations  Not only by grades, it became more significant after controlling for grades  Largest predicator for Latinos and Caucasians

13. R ESULTS Facilitatory Resources Parental Factors Parental expectations predicts individual educational expectations and is significant for all ethnic groups Parental education highly predicts grades For Latinos, parental warmth and parental education were not as strong of predictors as for Caucasians Personal Resources Motivational variables were found not to be significant  Ex. Goal engagements/disengagmenets

14. R ESULTS Inhibitory Resources Parental Factors For Latinos, having low parental warmth does not effect college enrollment In fact, those with low parental warmth do slightly better The reverse is said for Caucasians, parental warmth correlates with low college enrollment For the Caucasians with low Parental education and parental warmth, the probability of failing in their educational attainment and goal achievement increases. Parental Education levels have no effect for Latinos

15. D ISCUSSION

16. Grades and educational expectations stood as the strongest predicators for college enrollment in all ethnic groups, especially for Latinos.  Uneven distribution for college enrollment is explained Little to no significance was concluded on the main effects model from the other investigated variables  E.g. No significance found on motivational variables Contrary to expectations:  No sociocultural factors were found to be highly significant for college enrollment

17. C ONCLUSION

18. C ONCLUSIONS The most significant protective factors for college enrollment across gender and all ethnic groups are: Grades and Educational Expectations Emphasizing the importance of grades and having the expectation of academic success becomes an important parenting strategy For college enrollment, Latino students need educational expectations most of all to succeed in academia

19. Acknowledgments Dr. Jutta Heckhausen – Faculty Mentor Dr. Kris Day – Social Ecology Professor Jared Lessard – Graduate Student Advisor Motivational Lab Partners – Cory Clark, Bernadette Torres, & Alexandria Delgado UROP Social Ecology Honors Program Especially my fellow classmates

20. Q UESTIONS ???? Thank You!