"That's What Really Helped Me Was Their Teaching": Instructor Impact on the Retention of American Indian Students at a Two-Year Technical College

Instructors have often been pegged as the major factor in the success of American Indian college students. In addition to personal and academic relationships, instructional methods and design play a pivotal role in student retention, and instructors must be sensitive to their students’ needs when designing and delivering instruction. Given that American Indian students at the South Central Institute of Technology graduated at a rate five times higher than the reported national average for programs from which students planned to enter directly into the workforce, interviews were conducted with American Indian students to learn about their perceptions of how their instructors may have played a role in their success. To help improve American Indian student retention, implications for practice and research based on student responses are being offered. Research studies over the past two decades have repeatedly confirmed that American Indian students had the least likelihood of all ethnic groups to enter and complete college. Despite significant gains, only 17.7% of American Indians age 18-24 were enrolled in post-secondary education as opposed to 41.6% of European-Americans in the same age bracket. In fact, American Indians had the lowest college Carsten Schmidtke is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas. He can be reached at cswded@uark.edu Instructor Impact on American Indian Students 49 participation rate of all major ethnic groups (Freeman & Fox, 2005). In addition, statistical analyses from these studies indicated that only between 4% and 18% of those American Indians who did enroll in college eventually completed their degrees (Brown & Robinson-Kurpius, 1997; Carnegie Foundation, 1999; Huffman, 1991; Jackson & Smith, 2001; Pottinger, 1990; Tierney, 1993, 1995; Wilson, 1998), although one report about NCAA college athletes went as high as 36% (Pavel, Skinner, Cahalan, Tippeconnic, & Stein, 1998). Low graduation rates are part of a predicament faced by many tribes. Leaders with college educations and advanced training are needed to help preserve tribal languages, cultures, and identities; manage tribal resources; support tribal political and economic development; and work with institutions of the mainstream society. However, the lack of qualified leaders often forces tribes to hire either non-Native outsiders or underprepared tribal members (Benally, 2004; Demmert, 1997). Scholars have argued for many years that American Indian students have unique values, beliefs, attitudes, goals, and needs that instructors at the college level must take into account if they want their students to be successful (Jackson & Smith, 2001; James, 1992; O’Brien, 1990; Pottinger, 1990; Scott, 1986; Swisher, 1994; Wilson, 1998). However, too few faculty members have understood, respected, and acted upon these needs, and their attitude has contributed to high noncompletion rates among Native students (Dodd, Garcia, Meccage, & Nelson, 1995; Pewewardy & Frey, 2004; Tate & Schwartz, 1993). According to Benjamin, Chambers, and Reiterman 50 JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL TEACHER EDUCATION (1993), American Indian cultures have their own ways of valuing and encouraging persistence, which manifest themselves in certain preferences for learning styles and assessment methods. Consequently, if instructors are truly student-centered, they must adapt to the needs of their students and not expect students to be the ones to change (Aragon, 2002; Gilbert, 2000; Wilson, 1998). Faculty members must show an understanding of their American Indian students’ unique cultural backgrounds and classroom needs and adjust their instructional methods if students are to persist. Some scholarship suggests that technical education has been particularly successful in this regard and that its pedagogy as well as its workplace connection shows promise for strategies to increase American Indian student retention (Tierney, 1995; Tippeconnic, 2000; West, 1988). The current study, to find out about students’ perceptions of how their instructors had helped them learn and persist in their studies, involved graduating American Indian students at a mainstream sub-baccalaureate technical college. This researcher was particularly interested in those instructor attitudes and teaching methods that students responded to positively and that in their estimation contributed to their success.