| Description |
First-Generation College (FGC) students are a growing demographic in postsecondary education. Approximately two million, or 39.3% of the five million students who have taken the ACT standardized test over the past two and a half years, have parents without a 4-year college degree. FGC students are more likely to arrive on campus with different needs than those of traditional college students. Recent data on college student outcomes suggest that FGC students are less engaged, are less likely to successfully integrate diverse college experiences, and are more likely to leave college prematurely than traditional students. This project will extend our understanding of FGC students by assessing the college outcomes of FGC students. Specifically, this study has two purposes: a) to assess if FGC and traditional students differ on levels of variables including noncognitive/motivational factors, career development variables, and ACT scores, as well as college outcome measures: end of first-year retention and first-tosecond-year retention, and b) to determine if noncognitive/motivational, career development and standardized test score variables differentially predict college outcome for FGC and traditional student populations. Results show FGC students had slightly higher Social Activity and Social Connection SRI Scales than traditional students. Additionally, ACT combined with noncognitive SRI scores are the most potent predictors of first-year GPA and first-to-second-year retention for both traditional and FGC students. The combination of ACT and SRI accounted for nearly twice the amount of incremental variance in predicting first year GPA for FGC than for traditional college students. |
