No abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to understand the factors that affect Latino student adjustment in the first and second year of college. The study examines data from a national, Iongitudinal survey along with the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire completed by Latino students judged to have high potential for success upon entering a variety of four-year colleges. Results show dimensions of the campus climate affect all forms of student adjustment, as do transitional experiences that are common to most students in the first year. Implications of the findings suggest further college programming and monitoring of adjustment in the second year of college.

There is a gap between ethnic minority students and ethnic majority students in the attainment of higher education degrees (Allen

Recently, many campuses have engaged in self-study in order to understand the climate as experienced by an increasingly diverse student body. Increases in diverse groups of students have led to both conflict and new campus opportunities for students to learn how to live and work in a complex, diverse society. Assessing the climate for diversity becomes key for institutions that wish to create comfortable, diverse learning environments. It is best accomplished when the campus is engaged in proactive activity that is part of the regular planning and evaluation process (Hurtado and Dey, 1997). Our goal for this chapter is to highlight key diversity issues for consideration in a climate study, including those that affect women; racial and ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) students; and disabled students. These climate issues are also pertinent to majority students in diverse environments and are quickly becoming a regular part of comprehensive climate studies on college campuses.

This chapter serves as a guide for quantitative researchers who seek to approach their research questions critically. Bridging Key Research Dilemmas: Quantitative Research Using a Critical Eye Deborah Faye Carter, Sylvia HurtadoFor many of us who use quantitative methodology on a regular basis, we confront constraints while at the same time attempting to stretch the boundaries of current theory and develop models relevant to specific populations. This becomes clearer over the course of a long-term research agenda, because the topics we choose and who we are as researchers become evident through our work. In this chapter, we explore several key research dilemmas and potential solutions for quantitative researchers intent on using a critical eye for examining current theory and models.These dilemmas involve describing how the role of the quantitative researcher becomes apparent on examination of a body of work, the choice between comparing groups or highlighting variability in a single group, choosing approaches for generalizability or context specificity, and remaining "distant" or participating in action research. Finally, we propose potential solutions to some of these dilemmas, which we have confronted in our own work.In this chapter, we argue that (1) quantitative research is not wholly objective and that there are ways in which autobiography can intersect with research; (2) critical quantitative approaches identify discrepancies between theory and fact; and (3) there are positives and negatives for comparative group versus context-specific approaches to understanding group differences.