How College Students Interact with Faculty: An Analysis by Gender, Race, SES, and Other Characteristics

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 12. Higher Education: Majors and Academic Identities

Abstract

While student-faculty interaction has been generally heralded as a contributor to desired college outcomes, some studies have shown that it depends on the types (or nature) of the interaction (Cole 2007; Kim and Sax, 2014; Komarraju, Musulkin, and Bhattacharya 2010). For example, Cole (2007) found that receiving advice or critique from faculty lowered intellectual self-concept of college students, whereas having faculty mentorship enhanced the intellectual self-concept. Similarly, Kim and Sax (2014) indicated that talking with faculty either during or outside of office hours did not have a significant effect on students’ academic self-concept, while more specific types of interaction, such as challenging a professor’s ideas in class and asking professor for advice outside of class did enhance their academic self-concept. In this study, we attempt to add to the research on student-faculty interaction by examining how the effect of faculty interaction is conditioned by the type of the interaction as well as how the levels of different types of the interaction vary by student characteristics. This study will address the following research questions:
1. How do the levels of student-faculty interaction differ by student characteristics? Do the patterns vary by the type of the interaction?
2. Does the relationship between student-faculty interaction and college outcomes vary by the type of faculty interaction?

Author

• Young K. Kim, Azusa Pacific University