Abstract
Purpose: Student-mothers from low-income families are three times as likely to drop out of college as female students without children. Yet, the economic and social benefits of postsecondary education for low-income mothers underscore the importance of examining environmental barriers to completing college for these women. Methods: The intent of this study, therefore, is to develop and validate an instrument, the school support scale, aimed at measuring the perception of emotional and tangible college support among student-mothers from low-income families. Results: Findings show excellent reliabilities for emotional (α = .944) and tangible (α = .888) subscales and indicate that student-mothers who perceive faculty and staff as supportive tend to have strong commitments to the institution (p = .01). Applications: The 22-item scale can be used as an “early-warning” tool for college counselors and administrators to support student-mothers in identifying and removing barriers that contribute to problems associated with college retention of low-income mothers.
Keywords
College students learn better and are more committed to degree completion, when they perceive interactions with faculty and staff as supportive (Lungberg & Schreiner, 2004; Sax, Bryant, & Harper, 2005). These interactions have strong positive influences on students’ academic achievement and interpersonal development (Cejda & Rhodes, 2004; Lungberg & Schreiner, 2004). Moreover, interactions perceived as honest with less formal styles of communication are particularly effective in promoting an academic atmosphere conducive to learning (de Lange, 1995; Sax et al., 2005). For instance, student outcomes on college commitment measures are higher for those who experience positive interactions with faculty (Eimers & Pike, 1997; Nordquist, 1993). The impact of creating a positive academic atmosphere on the student body population applies to all types of institutions of higher learning, including community colleges. In an editorial focused on teaching at community colleges, Fogg (2007) suggested that many students come to college with personal challenges; therefore, instructors should make the effort to get to know students by encouraging them to come to office hours and to discuss career plans as a method to address student retention issues. In addition to the impact of academic climate on college students, this positive effect has been found to extend to student-mothers (Coccia, 1997; Haleman, 2004; Kahn & Polakow, 2000; Van Stone, Nelson, & Niemann, 1994). However, large-scale studies substantiating the positive effect between faculty support and student-mother outcomes are relatively absent from the literature. This is significant for two reasons: (a) 73% of women enrolled in community colleges are mothers, 30% are single, and 38% come from low-income families (Horn, Peter, Rooney, & Mallzio, 2002); and (b) 70% of community college students (90% female) with one or more children fail to attain their degrees after 6 years of initial enrollment (Hoachlander, Sikora, Horn, & Carroll, 2003). Clearly, student-mothers need supportive faculty and staff to validate their efforts to pursue educational goals; yet, studies have not sufficiently addressed the low retention issues for this population.
The one most frequently utilized theory for understanding why the academic atmosphere (i.e., perceived environmental support) impacts academic achievement, interpersonal development, and retention for college students, particularly student-mothers attending community colleges, is social support. Social support theory focuses on the influence of social relationships on an individual and is defined as “aid and assistance exchanged through social relationships and interpersonal transactions (Heaney & Isreal, 2002, p. 187). Social support theory also predicts that individual’s well-being will be enhanced due to supportive social ties to other individuals, groups, and the larger community (Hupcey, 1998). For student-mothers, perceptions of supportive faculty and staff are believed to enhance educational outcomes.
The consequence for student-mothers, particularly those operating as the head of the household, who experience a lack of social support from the institution and decide to discontinue college enrollment is the financial impact. Although mothers of low-income families who complete high school achieve an important step toward economic self-sufficiency, (see Black, Devereux, & Salvanes, 2008; Bunting & McAuley, 2004; Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998; Corcoran, 1999; Lesser & Escoto-Lloyd, 1999; McIntyre, Saudargas, & Howard, 1991; Sangalang, 2006) high school diplomas are often not enough to ensure ongoing economic stability. For example, those who obtain college degrees earn $5,496 more in yearly income and were 23% more likely to own homes compared to those who do not continue education beyond high school (Zhan, 2004). Mothers who exit from public welfare tend to have more education than those who remain and those with more education have a reduced change of recidivism (Lower-Basch, 2000). Additionally, 90% of mothers with college degrees who leave welfare receive employment, compared to 71% with high school diplomas (Acker, Morgren, Heath, Barry, Gonzales, & Weight, 2001). Identifying factors that can foster college degree completion and training may provide important insight into how institutions of higher learning can support low-income mothers in their pursuit of higher education.
Many college administrators recognize the significance of supportive interactions by faculty and staff on student retention; thus, they specifically seek to allocate expenditures for student support services (Fike, 2008; Sheldon, 2003). However, college administrators who seek to strengthen support for at-risk students, such as student-mothers, are confounded by the lack of available tools to measure support among student subgroups (Astin, 1991; Upcraft & Schuh, 1996). With educational accountability at the forefront of assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of educational programs, the development of an assessment tool, such as a scale to determine support among vulnerable student-mothers, can be used to demonstrate to educational stakeholders the importance and value of community colleges (Upcraft & Schuh, 1996). As a result, colleges can use this information to help sustain financial support for its academic programs. In other words, increasing retention is a “win-win” situation for institutions and students. By investing in the creation of a supportive environment, students will become more engaged in college and more apt to complete their academic program. These efforts can then lead to improved completion rates for a relatively large portion of students who are often juggling the responsibilities of motherhood, employment, and schooling.
The need for specific measures pertaining to the nature of support during student-mothers’ college experience drives our effort to devise an instrument that can assess their views on these issues. Given that it is important to build on emerging research about the power of relationships with faculty in retaining mothers at community colleges, it is crucial to understand and mitigate obstacles to completing college. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to report our efforts to develop and validate an assessment tool to measure perceived institutional support for low-income mothers. Based on concepts outlined in social support theory, we evaluated perceived faculty and staff support along two dimensions—tangible and emotional.
Method
Procedures and Participants
Prior to the initiation of the study, all protocol and procedures were approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board of Human Subjects and the community college’s Office of Educational Research. Subject recruitment procedures involved the use of electronic mail to send flyers to students inviting female student-mothers to complete an anonymous survey at a central location on campus. Students completed the survey at a table in the student commons area. The first author administered the surveys. Some students expressed a preference to complete the instrument via e-mail. These students were sent an electronic copy of the survey to complete. Data were collected during the Spring and Summer academic sessions of 2006 on the campus of a local community college.
A total of 240 (n = 240) student-mothers attending a community college in southeastern United States completed the survey. All returned surveys were useable The majority of the students was enrolled full-time (63%), received financial aid (61%), and participated in the Federal food stamp or Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program (62%). The mean age was 30 (SD = 8.37) with a range from 19 to 54 years. These students had an average of 1.86 children in their care (SD = 1.27) with a range from 1 to 6 children. In all 42% was employed full-time, 23% employed part-time, and 35% unemployed. Regarding marital status, the sample was primarily unmarried (78%). The racial and ethnic composition was 61% African American, 32% Caucasian, 3% Latina, and 3% other.
Dual Dimensionality of Social Support for Student-Mothers
Heaney and Isreal’s (2002) social support theory provide a framework for conceptualizing support among female college students, which includes two types—emotional and tangible (Mallinckrodt, 1988; Rayle, Kurpius, & Arredondo, 2006–2007). Emotional support is defined as verbal encouragement or appraisal during an interpersonal interaction and has been operationalized as perceived empathy, trust, caring, constructive feedback, and affirmation from college faculty and staff (Heaney & Isreal, 2002). Tangible support is instrumental and informational, and includes perceived level of desirable advice, suggestions, and concrete services or goods from college faculty and staff. This information was used to create the scale’s structure of support.
Item Development Centering on Emotional and Tangible Support
We conducted an extensive review of the social support literature to identify and develop an initial pool of possible scale items to assess student perceptions of school support from faculty and staff (Haleman, 2004; Kahn & Polakow, 2000; Van Stone et al., 1994). Based on the literature and the definition of school support, an initial pool of 24 items was created with the intention of including relevant content that adhere to the meaning of tangible and emotional support (see Table 1 ). For example, items regarding perceived availability of faculty and the receipt of information pertaining to access to childcare services and computer facilities were written with the specific intent to reflect tangible or concrete support relevant to mothers attending college. Similarly, items regarding students’ perceptions about how well they were respected by faculty and staff, how well they trusted their instructors, and the level of concern from faculty and staff were created to reflect emotional support. The items focused on capturing the full range of each construct to be measured. Additionally, we engaged in an iterative process for item development by carefully scrutinizing the wording and content of each item, in order to increase the precision of the items in adhering to the stated definition and to increase the probability of face and content validity. Finally, we determined that the readability of the scale is 7.2 grade, and posited that, because the target group for this study was community college students, respondents should be able to interpret the meaning of each item.
Reliability and Descriptive Statistics on 24-Item School Support Scale (n = 240)
To assess face and content validity, the item pool was given to a select group of local professionals who specialize in educational research, psychometrics, and feminism. These experts (a) rated each item based on its relevance in adhering to the definitions of emotional and tangible support, (b) identified confusing phrases or words in the scale, (c) provided input on the appropriateness of the scale’s response options, and (d) rated the adherence of each item to its domain, (i.e., tangible or emotional support) based on the stated definition. These ratings ranged from 1 (item is not representative of the domain) to 4 (item is representative of the domain). All items attained a mean score above the midpoint (2.5) of responses with 16 items scoring the maximum score of 4.0. The ratings indicated that panel members viewed the items as representative of the definitions for both domains. Based on these ratings, the scale has face and content validity.
Scale Format
Each item was presented in a 7-point Likert scale format (1 = Never, 2 = Rarely, 3 = A Little, 4 = Sometimes, 5 = Regularly, 6 = Often, and 7 = Always) to maximize sensitivity to changes in perceptions and among respondents as recommended by Springer, Abell, and Nugent (2002). Response options intended to capture the frequency of perceptions about interactions with faculty and staff. No item was reversed coded. Thus, higher scores on each item and on the entire scale indicated greater perceived school support. Responses were averaged to produce a mean score for the total scale and for each subscale to assess reliability.
Assessing Construct Validity
To assess construct validity, respondents provided demographic information, their level of school commitment (a six-item scale pertaining to school satisfaction and quality of education and sense of belonging, for example), and their perception of academic support from family and friends. To establish convergent validity, the school support scale was correlated with items that measured respondents’ perceptions of academic support from family and friends, a theoretically relevant construct. We believed that perceptions of school support should correlate or converge with perceptions of academic support from family and friends. To establish discriminant validity, we selected items that were likely to have no relationship with the scale, age, and program of study. Theoretically, the respondents’ age and program of study should be unrelated to perceptions of school support from faculty and staff. Previous research demonstrated that perceptions of support from faculty and staff are predictive of students’ college commitment (Eimers & Pike, 1997; Nordquist, 1993). Thus, the school support scale and the college commitment scale should be highly correlated, and could be used to evaluate predictive-criterion validity. Validation of the college commitment scale yielded an acceptable reliability (α = .86) and thus, was used to determine predictive-criterion validity (Strauss & Volkwein, 2004).
Results
Alpha Reliability and Descriptive Statistics
As an indicator of reliability, the coefficient α was used to assess internal consistency among items for the scale and for each subscale. To examine the effect of individual items on the coefficient α, the corrected item-total correlations were calculated and used for interpretation. The corrected item-total correlation provided an unbiased correlation of each item with all other scale items excluding itself to avoid a spurious effect (Cohen & Cohen, 1975). Table 1 shows the reliabilities and descriptive statistics for each item. The corrected item-total correlation should be higher than .40 and in a positive direction (Doll & Torkzadeh, 1988). Items #3 and #11 had correlations lower than this criterion with values of .35 and .22, respectively. The other correlations ranged between .56 and .87. As shown on Table 1, Items #3 and #11 have a small negative effect on the internal consistency of the overall scale. The Cronbach’s α if item deleted column shows the value of the coefficient α if the item was deleted from the subscale. Items that appear to fit with the other items in the same subscale should have an “α if deleted” value lower than the corresponding subscale α. Item #3 had a value slightly higher than the α for the tangible subscale of .89. The potential to increase α for Item #3 and low correlation for Items #3 and #11 was sufficient evidence to flag these two items (#3 and #11) as problematic.
Inspection of the correlation matrix showed that Items #3 and #11 were not correlated with any of the other items in the scale. Another means of assessing items is to correlate each item with the sum of the total school support scale and each subscale (tangible and emotional). The correlations followed a defensible pattern, meaning that each item had a higher correlation on its related subscale. All items were correlated with the total school support scale (p = .01). For evidence of an item placed in the correct domain, correlations should be higher among its corresponding subscale than the opposing subscale. This means that items in the emotional subscale should have higher correlations with other items in the emotional subscale. Also items in the tangible subscale should have higher correlations with other items in the tangible subscale. As hypothesized, all items yielded a higher correlation for its corresponding subscale. However, for Items #3 and #11 the correlation was the lowest with .48 and .30 on the tangible subscale.
Finally, we examined potential conceptual problems with the scale items. Item #3 addressed childcare services from the college and Item #11 addressed the availability of reliable transportation to and from school. Both items were initially chosen based on previous research indicating that transportation and childcare are barriers for female parents attending college (Haleman, 2004; Pandey, Zhan, Neely-Barnes, & Menon, 2000; Van Stone et al., 1994). However, Likert scale response options may have been inappropriate as response categories for Items #3 and #11 because of the potential for dichotomous responses (i.e., yes or no). In other words, respondents may have responded to these items based on the presence of transportation and childcare rather than their perceptions about the availability of these services.
Based on these findings, Items #3 and #11 were removed from the tangible subscale, leaving 10 items in the tangible subscale and 22 items total. From this point, all other analyses were conducted with the revised 10-item tangible subscale of the 22-item support scale.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is typically used to establish factorial validity, when strong evidence suggests that items in a scale belong to a particular construct (Springer et al., 2002). Since the creation of the school support scale led to its prediction of dual dimensionality based on social support theory, empirical studies, and expert panel, we believed that the hypothesized model would provide a good fit to the data. Therefore, CFA was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM; Byrne, 1994) to determine the validity of the two-factor scale (tangible and emotional). To evaluate the two-factor structure, we examined model fit statistics (chi-square, the root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA], goodness-of-fit index [GFI], the normed fit index [NFI], and the comparative fit index [CFI]; Kline, 1998; Tate, 1998). We also examined the modification indices and standardized covariance residuals to identify possible areas for improving the hypothesized model.
The revised 22-item scale produced a number of problems with the overall fit. The chi-square statistic test of model fit was 872.98 (df = 21; p < .001). The ratio of the chi-square statistic to degrees of freedom was 4.19, which is higher than the acceptable maximum ratio of 3.0 (Tate, 1998). The RMSEA index of .116 was higher than criteria of .08 or lower, and the NFI of .79, CFI of .83, and GFI of .72 were all less than the criteria of .9 or higher to indicate an excellent model fit. To locate the model fit problems, we examined the modification indices and covariance residuals. Based on this assessment, it was determined that model fit could be improved by correlating six of the error variances. Specifically, four error variances were correlated in the tangible subscale. Correlating error the four variances appeared to make substantive sense because those items specifically related to perceived information received by faculty and staff. Correlating two error variances on the emotional subscale appeared to make substantive sense because those items related specifically to praise received by faculty and staff and academic help received. These modifications resulted in statistically significant improvement in the fit of the model to the data. The magnitude of standardized covariance residuals was less than 2.5, which is one indicator of good model fit (Tate, 1998). The chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio reduced to 3.2, which is just above the acceptable maximum ratio. The fit indices also improved, with a revised RMSEA of .098, NFI of .84, CFI of .88, and GFI of .78 (see Table 2 ). These indices fell below the excellent range, which could imply that the model might need respecification for future revalidation studies. The modification indices did not yield values to suggest additional model revisions. All factorial loadings of the reevaluated model were positive, as displayed in Figure 1 .
Summary of Fit Indices for Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the School Support Scale
Note. Models: A = Revised model with Item 3 and Item 11 deleted; B = revised with five correlated errors. Indices are: χ2(df) = as chi-square statistic and degrees of freedom for test of model fit; Ratio = the ratio of chi-square and degrees of freedom; p value = p value for test of model fit; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; NFI = normed fit index; GFI = goodness-of-fit index.
Path diagram for the revised school support scale for Model B.
Construct Validity of the 22-item School Support Scale
In developing and testing a newly proposed measure based on the social support literature, it was important to establish construct validity to ensure that the school support scale was accurately defined based on its theoretical relationships with other scales or survey items (DeVellis, 2003). As indicators of construct validity, convergent, discriminant, and predictive-criterion validity were tested to determine if the hypothesized theoretical relationships of the proposed school support scale to other scales or survey items correlated as expected. Table 3 summarizes the following results.
Construct Validity for the Modified School Support Scale
*p = .01.
Convergent validity
To determine convergent validity, we included two items that were hypothesized to be negatively correlated with the 22-item scale (i.e., “My family has been a solid source of personal support for my academic efforts” and “My friends has been a solid source of personal support for my academic efforts”). The family support item was correlated at −.31 (p = .01) with an effect size of .096 and the peer support item was correlated at −.43 (p = .01) with an effect size of .185, indicating excellent convergent validity. Additionally, 28% of the total variance was explained, indicating an effect size large enough to account for close to one third of the total variance. This demonstrates that perceived support from faculty and staff correlates with theoretically similar items, namely, perceived social support from friends and family. Based on these results, evidence in favor of convergent validity was supported.
Discriminant validity
To determine discriminant validity, two theoretically unrelated survey items were included in the scale—respondent’s age and program of study—to determine their association with the scale. As anticipated, results showed nonsignificant correlations of .019 and .025, respectively. Additionally, these items failed to explain any variance, meaning they were not of practical importance. The insignificant correlations and a lack of practical importance of these dissimilar items provide evidence for discriminant validity of the school support scale.
Predictive-criterion validity
The six-item college commitment scale (α = .85, SD = 5.2; SE = 2.0) was used to assess predictive-criterion validity based on the hypothesis that students who perceive faculty and staff as supportive will be more likely to be more committed to finishing college (Lungberg & Schreiner, 2004; Sax et al., 2005). As hypothesized, the college commitment scale was correlated with the school support scale (r = −.69, p =.01; effect size = 47%), indicating that students who scored higher on the school support scale (meaning they perceive faculty and staff as supportive to their emotional and tangible needs) were more likely to score lower on the six-item college commitment scale (meaning they experienced no issues with school satisfaction and the quality of education they receive). Respondents who perceived faculty and staff as supportive were more likely to be committed to college. This indicates that predictive-criterion validity was evident in the relationship between the school support scale and the college commitment scale.
Final Psychometrics of the Modified School Support Scale
The last step of these analyses was to reevaluate the psychometric properties of the modified 22-item school support scale after Items #3 and #11 were removed from the initial 24-item scale. The revised findings, including the coefficient αs, means, standard errors (SE), and intercorrelations for the modified scale and subscales are provided in Table 4 .
Means, αs, and Intercorrelations of the Modified School Support Scale for Student Mothers
Note. ES = emotional subscale; SS = school support scale; TS = tangible subscale.
*Correlation is significant at .01 level.
Internal consistency
Following the guidelines for acceptability (Springer, Abell, & Nugent, 2002), reliability analyses revealed that the modified 22-item school support scale and its subscales show strong internal consistency (overall scale, α = .952; 10-item tangible subscale, α = .894; 12-item emotional subscale, α = .939).
Standard error of measurement (SEM)
Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) argue that coefficient αs have some disadvantages (being sample dependent and influenced by variance). Therefore, the SEM was calculated as a last step in estimating the scale’s reliability. The SE of the school support scale was .10, .23 for the tangible subscale, and .03 for the emotional subscale. According to Hudson’s (as cited in Springer, Abell, & Hudson, 2002) guidelines for SE adequacy, the scale and subscales SE values were within 5% (≤.3) of the scale score range (range = 6). The demonstrated SEM’s indicated adequate SE as one estimation of reliability.
Intercorrelations
The total school support scale and its subscales were intercorrelated to determine the relationship between each subscale and between the subscales and the total score for the measure. The total scale correlated with the tangible subscale at .93 (p = .01) and with the emotional subscale at .96 (p = .01). The emotional subscale correlated with the tangible subscale at .79 (p = .01). These correlations indicate that the scores among the scale and subscales are highly related but yet not redundant, which should be expected among dual dimensional scales (Springer et al., 2002).
Discussion and Applications to Practice
The present study reported on the development and initial validation of a 24-item scale designed to measure perceived faculty and staff support among 240 low-income mothers attending a community college. Two items in the tangible subscale were problematic based on their low correlations, the potential to increase coefficient α, and conceptual misinterpretations for the Likert-type format. Psychometric results of the reduced 22-item scale provide support for the dual dimensionality of perceived school support from faculty and staff. Our results support Heaney and Isreal’s (2002) social support theory that verbal encouragement or appraisal and instrumental or informational assistance define perceived support during an interpersonal interaction.
Although this initial validation shows promising results, two limitations of the study should be noted. First, the manner in which the sample was recruited lends itself to potential issues related to self-selection bias, which could threaten the representativeness of the findings to all student-mothers at that particular community college. However, this study was able to provide a foundation from which to conduct future revalidation studies on similar samples to determine if results are consistent with this initial study. Secondly, the fit indices for the revised 22-item scale were below the criteria for a perfect model fit. We correlated six error variances that were conceptually meaningful. This resulted in a significant improvement in the model fit; yet, the improvement was not enough to yield an excellent model fit to the data. This limitation could imply the need to reexamine the items to ensure that the most important content is included or that the error variances suggest that informational support as a separate dimension.
Despite the limitations, the school support scale could be very useful for community college officials as they devise comprehensive assessment programs for single mothers. Tied to accreditation standards and federal and state funding, community colleges must be accountable to their stakeholders that educational programs adhere to their stated educational mission (Astin, 1991). In order to accomplish this goal, colleges need to evaluate the campus environment, which would include an assessment of “everything that happens to students during the course of an educational program that might conceivably influence the outcomes under consideration” (Astin, 1991, p. 235). Students’ opinions about faculty relationships are believed to be a key element in assessing their perceived environmental support. Considering the increasing scrutiny that institutions of higher education endure in the age of accountability, attempts to disentangle the complex influences of the campus environment on important educational outcomes such as graduation puts the desire for assessing and monitoring into the forefront (Alexander, 2000; Upcraft & Schuh, 1996).
Another noteworthy aspect relates to the demographics of the student-mothers sampled in this study. With over half of the women reportedly participating in the Federal food stamp program, receiving Federal financial aid, racially minority, and unmarried, the importance and utility of the school support scale gets at the crux of consistent themes across the qualitative literature focused on the experiences of poor, single-parent, and minority women. From their personal accounts, these women report feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, and desire for departure, when faculty and staff were perceived as inflexible, discouraging, and condescending (Haleman, 2004; Kahn & Polakow, 2000; Van Stone et al., 1994). Therefore, the school support scale could potentially contribute to a more standardized method of understanding differential educational outcomes based on accounting for the influence of faculty and staff.
To accurately address the specific experiences of mothers in college as it relates to their emotional and tangible support from faculty and staff, it is reasonable to devise a scale that encompassed the themes presented in many qualitative studies. A similar example was illustrated at a college in Minnesota, in which researchers wanted to respond to the influx of Asian immigrants on campus (Tsuchida, 1982). With the intent of identifying and removing potential barriers of disadvantaged Southeast Asians students, a measure of student satisfaction was developed and validated with the specific intent of developing student retention programs. These efforts resulted in the creation of such a retention program and helped to create a positive campus climate for Asians students. For low-income student-mothers, the application of the school support scale as an assessment tool may have a similar effect of (a) identifying and removing potential educational barriers, (b) understanding the relationship between faculty–student interactions and degree completion, and (c) helping institutions of higher learning address the needs of student-mothers.
The issue of attending higher education is of concern for the social work profession. Promoting and advocating for equal access to higher education, the social work profession recognizes education as an avenue for low-income families to move into stable and nontraditional employment (Woodside, 2001). For example, the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) position statement on improving public welfare highlights the importance of extending the scope beyond Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) reauthorization toward a focus on improving the support for higher education and employment training in high-wage jobs (Woodside, 2001). Adhering to the mission and core values of social work, the belief in dignity and worth of low-income mothers can be utilized through social justice efforts, which would mean equitable educational opportunities for all citizens regardless of their social status. The initial validation of the school support scale for low-income mothers provides one step toward creating a tool that institutions can utilize to advocate for equitable resources.
The issue of retention in higher education is of concern for college administrators. In 2000, a national survey of 1,450 colleges and universities reported increases in retention rates from 1998 to 2000 (Horn & Carroll, 2001). Tied to federal funding, accreditation standards, and college ranking; College administrators are beginning to employ retention programs to eliminate educational barriers, particularly with at-risk students (Tinto, 1993). For many institutions of higher learning, at-risk students are often classified as first-generation in college, economically disadvantaged, educationally unprepared, underrepresented students of color, as well as students with parenting responsibilities (Bradburn & Carroll, 2002; Venezia & Kirst, 2005). Colleges and universities with successful retention programs provide support to low-income students with off-campus commitments and have experienced gains in retention as a result (Dennis, Phinney, & Chuateco, 2005; Fox, 1986; Tinto, 1993). Similarly, social work educators need to become more involved in the process of allocating institutional resources to aid at-risk students.
Overall, our analyses demonstrate the successful development and initial validation of the school support scale for mothers attending community college. We described the methods used to create scale items and to predict their hypothesized loadings onto tangible and emotional dimensions as reflective of the theory of social support. The reported psychometric properties revealed evidence that the scale may be a reliable and valid measure of perceived support from faculty and staff, which has been shown to have a substantial impact on student learning and persistence. Future revalidation studies could establish this scale as a more viable instrument to be used in multiple institutional settings with a diverse population of student-mothers. The potential for the school support scale to fill-in the critical measurement gaps in comprehensive assessment programs highlights its usefulness for institutions of higher learning. Moreover, this scale could facilitate a better understanding of the impact of faculty and student relationships as one dimension of assessing the environment for mothers in college. The implications of which not only benefit student-mothers but also their family, the community, and society at-large.
Footnotes
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.