Abstract
Colleges and universities across the United States are increasingly incorporating programs and initiatives specifically designed to bolster student involvement with issues of social justice and diversity. Numerous studies have demonstrated the positive effects of such initiatives on student openness and readiness to engage with social problems (Gurin et al, 2002; Bowman, 2011; Denson, 2009). Researchers have also developed scales to gauge student orientations towards social responsibility, diversity, and equality (Laird, Engberg, & Hurtado, 2005; Hurtado et al, 2002; Pascarella et al, 1996; Bowman & Brandenburger, 2012). However, efforts to understand students’ civic orientations have targeted mostly undergraduate students, mostly omitting graduate students, who tend to be more mature and more settled in their attitudes, oftentimes fully employed, and with varying family obligations ((Terenzini & Pascarella, 1998). This study assesses the civic orientations of graduate students via an existing instrument, and to test that instrument’s content validity and reliability. Data was collected through an electronic survey sent to graduate students enrolled in the 109 Higher Education programs across the United States. Civic orientation was measured by a seven-item scale, the Responsibility for Social Action (Chronbach’s alpha = 0.84), developed by Nelson Laird, Engberg, and Hurtado (2005). The scale assessed the level of personal responsibility one felt to taking action to improve society. The paper reports on the levels of civic orientation of the responding 367 graduate students from 64 universities, and on the instrument’s reliability and validity evaluated via Rasch analysis (Bond and Fox, 2015).
Presenters
Snejana DurstProfessor of Higher Education, Department of Educational Studies, University of Toledo, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Higher Education, United States, Graduate Students, Civic Orientation, Instrument Testing
