Measuring Equity-Minded Competence in Higher Education Faculty

• In Event: Racial Equity and Community Colleges: Equity-Mindedness and Student Experiences

Abstract

Objectives and Conceptual Framework
The beliefs that higher education faculty hold about race and equity can have a significant impact on the extent to which they advance equity for their students in the classrooms, and these beliefs tend to fall along a spectrum. On one side of the spectrum are deficit-minded teachers who ascribe the causes of racial and ethnic disparities in academic outcomes to students’ cultural and personal backgrounds (Smit, 2012). At the other side of the spectrum are equity-minded faculty who resist deficit narratives and look to systemic causes of inequitable outcomes in their classrooms and at their institution overall. Qualitative research suggests that equity-minded faculty are more effective at closing racial inequalities in course success, degree completion, and community college transfer (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Felix et al., 2015). Researchers and practitioners would therefore benefit from having a tool to measure where faculty fall along that continuum. However, there is no existing quantitative instrument that assesses whether faculty possess the attributes of equity-mindedness.
In this study, we describe the development and validation of a measure of instructors’ equity-minded competence. Following Bensimon (2018), we define equity-mindedness is defined as: (a) “being color-conscious in a critical sense”; (b) “being cognizant that racism is produced through everyday practices”; and (c) “being aware of racial identity, as well as racialized beliefs, expectations, and practices” (p. 97-98)

Methods and Data Sources
Using the equity-mindedness schema developed by Bensimon et al. (2015), we constructed a survey consisting of items related to the attributes of equity-mindedness. We adopted the scale development principles from DeVellis (2016) and Gelbach & Brinkworth (2011) to enhance the validity of our survey items and scales. Specifically, we
1. used information from an equity mindedness literature review to develop a preliminary set of items;
2. presented the items to equity mindedness experts to review for relevance and comprehension, which we then used to further refine our items; and
3. conducted nine in-depth cognitive interviews with potential faculty to understand potential sources of error in survey comprehension.
We have revised our items and will pilot the survey in August 2019, with data analysis scheduled to be completed by December 2019.

Scholarly significance
As the field increasingly recognizes the importance of developing faculty equity-mindedness towards racial equity in education, it is important to create a diagnostic assessment of equity-mindedness that will provide a means to measure learning and change in faculty attitudes, beliefs, and practices as they relate to racial equity. With the equity-mindedness assessment that we are developing, faculty will be able to track changes in their mastery of the attributes of equity-mindedness over the course of equity-focused interventions and professional development activities. Research suggests that faculty awareness of their equity-mindedness could then foster a desire to examine how their own practices can be modified to close these gaps (Bensimon, 2015; Bensimon & Malcom-Piqueux, 2012).

Authors

• David Quinn, University of Southern California

• Akua Nkansah-Amankra, University of Southern California

• Tara-Marie Kirsten Desruisseaux, University of Southern California

• Estela M. Bensimon, University of Southern California

• Debbie Hanson, University of Southern California