Impact of membership in black greek letter organizations on student learning outcomes

This study examined the perceived relevance of Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs) through the perspectives of the undergraduate student populations at four target universities located in the State of Tennessee. This study also compared student learning outcomes of African American students who were members of BGLOs against African American students who did not belong to BGLOs Three research questions were addressed in this study: (1) Is there a significant difference in the self-reported GPAs of African-American students who are members of BGLOs versus those who are not members of BGLOs? (2) Is there a significant difference in student perceptions of the relevance of BGLOs based on the following variables? campus location, GPA category, class standing, ethnicity, status, gender, Greek affiliation, and type of institution (i.e. historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or predominantly white institutions (PWIs)? (3) For those students who are members of a fraternity or sorority, is there a significant difference in their perceptions of the relevance of BGLOs based on the organization’s governing council? A researcher-developed instrument was used to measure student perceptions on five scales. In terms of BGLOs and academic integration, the Pearson Chi-square test found no significant difference in academic performance for Blacks students with membership in BGLOs and Black students without membership in BGLOs. For social integration, results of the ANOVA and t-test used for questions 2 and 3 suggested the following: (a) Students with lower self-reported GPAs were more likely to have favorable perceptions of BGLOs than students with higher self-reported GPAs, (b) Black students were more likely to have favorable perceptions of BGLO’s leadership on campus, engagement in the community and overall relevance, than White students and students classified as “Other,” (c) part-time students were more likely to have favorable perceptions of BGLO’s leadership on campus and overall relevance, than full time students, (d) female students were more likely to have favorable perceptions of BGLO’s leadership on campus, engagement in the community and overall relevance, than male students and (e) Students enrolled at HBCUs were more likely to have favorable perceptions of BGLO’s leadership on campus than students enrolled at PWIs.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Cooper, Reginald

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bernard, Hinsdale
• Rausch, David W.; Anderson, Deanna; O'Leary, Brian J.
• College of Health, Education, and Professional Studies

• African American Greek letter societies
• African American college students -- Conduct of life

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/568

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1719