Description
Ethnic minorities and first-generation college students are earning Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics degrees at a disproportionately lower rate than their majority peers despite an upward trend in college graduation rates. Previous studies suggest that student’s sense of belonging, a predictor of student persistence, may be affected by student perceptions of faculty care. The current study used archival data to examine whether an expectation-confirmation framework, where student perceptions of faculty care relative to their expectations of faculty, may be a better predictor of student sense of belonging than an experiences-only model. College generation status and ethnicity were examined as potential moderators of an expectation-confirmation framework. Results provide mixed support for an expectation-confirmation framework over an experiences-only framework. Keywords: higher education, persistence, belonging, ethnic minority, first-generation
