Success factors for American Indian students at a sub-baccalaureate technical college

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study:

The purpose of this study was to learn about the experiences of American Indian students at a sub-baccalaureate technical college as they relate to retention. Based on statistics showing that American Indian students at the South Central Institute of Technology graduated at five times the rate of students nationwide and on comments in previous scholarship that technical education may be the answer to the low graduation rates among American Indian students, this study wanted to collect the experiences of successful students to see if additional success factors could be identified. Qualitative interviewing was used as the methodology of choice because in order to obtain students' true impressions, we must actually speak with them.

Findings and Conclusions:

The most important factors in student success as expressed by the participants of this study were a personal attitude that focused on success, support and encouragement from people in the students' lives, the ability to find help on and off campus when needed, and appropriate teaching methods that took students' preferred learning styles into account. All these factors, however, were tied to people. The one factor that connected them all was the importance of the relationships students had with the people in their lives, including faculty and staff members on campus. Although many of the success factors simply reflected good teaching, technical education pedagogy appears to be able to offer suggestions to administrators and practitioners in other fields of study on how to engage their American Indian students better.