Ecological Validation Model of Student Success

• In Event: Evolving Ecological Models and Their Use in Research on College Students

Abstract

As part of the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) study, researchers developed an innovative, empirically-based student support model called Ecological Validation that we found increases the success of low-income, first-generation, and racially minoritized students (whom we call “at-promise” to recognize their promising assets and potential for college success). The model was developed based on data collected from a 5-year multimethod case study of the Thompson Scholars Learning Communities (TSLC) at three University of Nebraska campuses. The TSLC is a 2-year comprehensive college transition program that serves at-promise students with a coordinated suite of academic, social, and career support. Quasi-experimental analyses showed that the TSLC significantly increased students’ sense of belonging, feelings of mattering, and their major and career self-efficacy. The Ecological Validation model we identified describes how and why the TSLC program promotes at-promise student success.

In our exploration of how and why the program works, we were sensitized to the coordinated ecology of support the program offered by Bronfenbrenner’s (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) ecological systems theory and the affirming, asset-based support educators offered to students by Rendón’s (1994) validation theory. Briefly defined, the Ecological Validation model is an approach to at-promise student support that is ecological in nature and validates at-promise students’ multiple identities, assets, strengths, and capabilities for success in a coordinated web (or ecology) of student support contexts over time. In the model, an educator proactively reaches out to an at-promise student to build a relationship and learn about the students’ background, multiple identities, and characteristics. The educator works with the student to determine what their challenges, needs, and college goals are and expresses genuine interest and care about the student’s success (experienced by the student as validating). The educator deliberates what kind of support is available in the greater campus ecology that they can connect the student to in order to build from their assets, address their challenges, meet their needs, and help students realize their college goals. The educator connects the student to a coordinated set of support contexts (i.e., an ecology of support) that is tailored to students’ needs and goals, which is experienced as validating by students.

Educators within the coordinated set of tailored support contexts provide validating support to students, affirm their unique capabilities for college success given their set of assets, and connect the student to additional resources as needed to reach their goals. The process of validation (Rendón, 1994) occurs across multiple college contexts and unfolds over time to account for students’ developmental trajectory. Validating experiences across multiple coordinated contexts immerses at-promise students in an affirming learning environment, and the synergy of multiple validating experiences across those learning contexts promotes students’ college success in a way that is greater than the effect of any one instance of validation alone.

Authors

• Joseph Kitchen, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Rosemary J. Perez, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ronald Hallett, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robert D. Reason, Iowa State University
  Non-Presenting Author