Achievement and persistence of postsecondary vocational-technical students as a function of ethnicity and sex

Abstract

The study analyzed postsecondary vocational-technical students to determine the relationship of ethnicity and sex to achievement (cumulative grade point average) and persistence (percent of program completed). The subjects of the study were 4,443 white, black, and Hispanic students of both sexes who had enrolled in one of the four campuses of Texas State Technical Institute in the fall of 1978. The data were extracted from centralized student records located on the main campus. The analyses revealed that sex/race groups have similar achievement and persistence under certain conditions. The same groups, however, were found to have different achievement and persistence when conditions changed. Hispanic students had a slightly higher level of achievement and persistence than students of the white ethnic groups; however, on one of the campuses, the Hispanic students had the lowest achievement and persistence of all. Black students generally had the lowest levels of achievement and persistence, but on one campus they attained the highest scores for persistence and the second highest scores for achievement. White students showed differences in achievement from campus to campus, but their differences were smaller than those of black and Hispanic students. White and Hispanic students, for the most part, exhibited similar scores for achievement and persistence, while black students had scores that were different and lower.Statistically significant interactions affecting both achievement and persistence were found when ethnicity was combined with campus, type of program (associate degree or skill development program), or length of program. There was also a significant interaction between ethnicity and marital status as regards persistence. There were significant differences among the age groups: the oldest groups of students had the highest achievement and the lowest persistence. Married students also had higher achievement and lower persistence than single students. The correlations of math and verbal scores with achievement were relatively high, but their correlations with persistence were low. Differences in achievement and persistence resulting from nontraditionality (being in a program with a strong overrepresentation of the opposite sex) were nonsignificant.