Academic Attitudes and Psychological Well-Being of Black American Psychology Graduate Students.

Abstract

Abstract The goal of this study is to explore the relationships between academic self-concept, perception of competency in related domains, and academic motivation (intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation), and reported anxiety and depression among Black American psychology graduate students. The major research question asks whether there is a relationship among reports of motivation, perception of competence, and reported levels of anxiety and depression. Results indicated that higher academic self-concept and perception of competence in general, as well as academic, interpersonal, and leisure domains were related to lower depression scores. Intrinsic motivation was also found to be related to lower depression scores. Motivation to know (a type of intrinsic motivation) and identified motivation (a type of extrinsic motivation) were negatively correlated with anxiety. Hierarchical regression revealed that leisure competence predicted lower depression scores for participants. Introduction The academic and social experiences of Black American graduate students have been discussed in the psychological and educational literatures for approximately four decades (Anderson & Hrabowski, 1977; DeFour & Hirsch, 1990; Garcia, 1980; Gasman, Hirschfield, V Hurtado, 1994). While there are some quantitative investigations of the correlates and corollaries of academic attitudes and performance among these graduate students (Defour & Hirsch, 1990; Hurtado, 1994), most studies have used qualitative data analyses to describe this population (Daniel, 2007; Gasman, et al., 2008; Williams, Brewley, Reed, White, Davis-Haley, 2005). Participants in these studies have included Blacks from Africa and Blacks from America who matriculated in doctoral and professional programs that include nursing, physical education (Bagley & Copeland, 1994; King & Chepyator-Thomson, 1996; Mingo, 2008), education, psychology, social work, the natural sciences, and engineering (Daniel, 2007; Gasman et al., 2008; Lewis, Ginsberg, Davies, & Smith, 2004; Maton & Hrabowski, 2004). Other qualitative works have included undergraduates, particularly to determine what factors would be important in their decision to pursue graduate study at Research I institutions (Davis, 2007; Ponterotto, Burkard, Yoshida, Cancelli, Mendez, Wasilewski, & Sussman, 1995). Much of the phenomena uncovered throughout these studies include graduate students' perceptions of faculty-student and peer interactions, along with perceptions of their program curricula, faculty support, and other factors (i.e., stereotype threat, feelings of isolation) shown to be associated with academic and psychological well-being (Brown, Davis, & McClendon, 1999; Taylor & Antony, 2000). For example, some students have reported that their interactions with Black mentors and doctoral advisors were associated with program completion (Bowman & Bowman, 1990; Gasman et al., 2008; Walker, Wright, & Hanley, 2001). Other studies, however, have shown that some of these students (particularly those enrolled in doctoral programs) grapple with feelings of isolation and devaluation. For example, Lewis et al., (2004) found that cultural and social isolation in a doctoral program at a large predominately White institution (PWI) of higher learning was the major theme discussed among eight Black doctoral students. Similar findings have been reported in other studies (Daniel, 2007; Gasman, et al., 2008; Gasman, Gerstl-Pepin, Anderson-Thompkins, Rasheed, & Hathaway, 2004; King & Chepyator-Thomson, 1996; Maton & Hrabowski, 2004; Williams et al., 2005). Although these qualitative studies are viewed as important, the nature of each does not allow findings to be generalized beyond their samples. That is, with no reported random selection of institutions and no reported random sampling of participants in each of these works , their results show a limited to relatively small number of pre-selected student experiences that are investigated (Cres well , 2005) . …