Examining construct validity of the Scale of Native Americans Giving Back.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to use Indigenous data collection to present construct validity of an instrument designed to test the American Indian/Alaska Native Millennium Falcon Postsecondary Persistence Model (Lopez, 2018). In the following, I describe an alternative sampling technique based on an Indigenous quantitative methodology to examine how to operationalize the AI/AN Millennium Falcon Persistence Model (AMFPM) in social scientific studies. I used an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on 117 participants from the Quechan and Cocopah Nations who responded to 30 items. The EFA was set to extract 4 hypothesized factors. The interpretation of rotated scales was with variables loadings greater than .30 and loading on a single factor retained. The 4-factor solution accounted for 43% of the total variance in the items. All 4 of the scales had acceptable levels of internal reliability for empirical research (i.e., Cronbach's alpha Ͼ .7). The exploratory factor analysis confirmed that all 4 of the original AMFPM factors (family, tribal, academic, institutional) were, in fact, captured by the Scale of Native Americans Giving Back. However, the analysis revealed that 2 of the factors merged (family and tribal support). Furthermore, the desire to give back and tribal identity emerged as separate constructs. The final scale that emerged in this study consists of 4 components of postsecondary persistence.

Indigenous cultural development and academic achievement of tribal community college students: Mediating roles of sense of belonging and support for student success.

“…Moreover, even with the addition of items tapping Indigenous cultural development, it was designed for community colleges, which does not consider all Tribal college students. Recommendations for future research include the use of Indigenous-focused instruments designed to be more sensitive to issues of power and race, such as Marroquín’s (2020) North American Indigenous College Student Inventory and Lopez’s (2020b) Scale of Native Americans Giving Back.…”

On the impossibilities of advancing racial justice in higher education research through reliance on the campus climate heuristic.

“…Furthermore, some scholars (Garcia et al, 2018) have used labels such as "QuantCrit" and/or "critical quantitative intersectionality" to describe the explicit use of CRT in their quantitative methods (Sablan, 2019). Two examples in contrast to a climate metaphor include the work of Jameson Lopez, who advocates for data sovereignty as fundamental to understanding and supporting Native American students' persistence in higher education (Lopez, 2020a(Lopez, , 2020b. The second is the work of Ezequiel Dixon-Román, who interrogates current quantification practices (particularly when creating and using algorithms) to uncover alternatives that address issues of race and power (de Freitas & Dixon-Román, 2017;Dixon-Román, 2017).…”

Integrating Critical Approaches into Quantitative STEM Equity Work

“…Students of color often conceptualize “success” as tied to their ability to give back to their communities, which is different from traditional conceptualizations of success ( McGee and Martin, 2011 ; Pérez Huber et al. , 2018 ; Lopez, 2020 ; McGee, 2020a ). As a result, we recommend that researchers adopt definitions of excellence within STEM contexts based on the conceptualizations of their population of interest and then use those definitions in analyses ( Pérez Huber et al.…”

“…Furthermore, the financial and psychological burdens that racially marginalized and minoritized students report while enrolled in and after college suggests that "success" postgraduation is not equitable across all groups (Keels et al, 2017;Davis et al, 2020;McGee, 2020b). Students of color often conceptualize "success" as tied to their ability to give back to their communities, which is different from traditional conceptualizations of success (McGee and Martin, 2011;Pérez Huber et al, 2018;Lopez, 2020;McGee, 2020a). As a result, we recommend that researchers adopt definitions of excellence within STEM contexts based on the conceptualizations of their population of interest and then use those definitions in analyses (Pérez Huber et al, 2018;Weatherton and Schussler, 2021).…”

“…Too often, quantitative STEM equity analyses are conducted with a "kitchen sink" approach in which full combinatorics are Recently, scholars have begun to discuss the need for a "race re-imaging" wherein commonly used measures such as motivation or institutional support are re-evaluated and adapted to fit the lived experiences of racially marginalized and minoritized experiences historically left out of educational psychology research (DeCuir-Gunby and Schutz, 2014;Lopez, 2020;Matthews and López, 2020). Research indicates that racially marginalized and minoritized students' value in STEM is strengthened through their ability to understand how STEM educational skill sets can uplift their communities (McGee and Bentley, 2017;Gray et al, 2020), countering the individualistic culture of STEM learning environments (Battey and Leyva, 2016;Carter, 2017).…”