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Developing research skills in African-American students: a case note
PERSPECTIVES ON. . . ●
Developing Research Skills in African-American Students: A Case Note by Patrick Hall
T
hirty-three years ago as a freshmen at a small Jesuit college in upstate New York, I, like so many freshmen, was presented with the task of learning how to conduct college-level research. For many of us in the social sciences and humanities, this meant negotiating the complexities of a typical academic library. My learning curve became even more difficult due to the socioeconomic make-up of this college, which drew students from upper-class backgrounds whose academic preparation in high school far outpaced my own. I was one of only a handful of African American students, and we were considered somewhat of an experiment at the time. The Jesuit admissions office wanted to see how well we would perform in an academically competitive private institution. I believe it is not an overstatement to suggest that one of the most pertinent accomplishments for young African American college students is improving their college-level research skills. I was fortunate enough to find a faculty mentor, a librarian, who took the time, over the course of several months, to give me the necessary research “building blocks” to develop what is sometimes referred to as a “research IQ”.1 Today, with a host of electronic sources available through the Internet and proprietary databases housed on the library web page, developing the research IQ of African American students and other special needs clientele is even more critical. When we review statistics dealing with the retention of African American undergraduates, especially at predominately white institutions, many of the reasons why these young people are not graduating can be traced to their shortcomings in this area.2 A student unable to look-up a magazine or journal article, either through a manual index or through a proprietary database, faces a serious handicap. If you haven’t learned the critical thinking skills necessary to distinguish between the best resources on a given research topic, or if you do not know how to cite your sources properly, you may have great difficulty submitting acceptable college-level research. As a research pedagogue, I have worked with African American students, and other students of color, who have never done research papers in which they had to cite their sources. Tragically, this is not been an isolated occurrence. The notion of bibliography, footnotes or endnotes and everything else we Patrick Hall is Associate Librarian for Public Affairs and Education, Penn State University, Harrisburg, PA ⬍[email protected]⬎.
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take for granted that a student should know before they come to college can no longer be assumed. Far too many African American students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not possess these research accoutrements as they begin their studies. In addition, and this is becoming more common in our new information environment, if a student cannot make the critical distinction between a source located via a general Internet search engine like Yahoo, Google or Lycos and material lifted from refereed proprietary databases such as PsycLit, JSTOR, Web of Science, Education Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts or the Environmental Universe, then their efforts to obtain a college degree are extremely hampered. As alluded to in several studies on the academic achievement of the Black undergraduate, the mastery of research skills, that is the ability to collect, organized and interpret data out of books, journals, proprietary databases as well as Internet sites into a coherent term project is the intellectual currency that young African Americans students must master.3 If we who work with minority students on a daily basis are at all serious about their retention and intellectual growth, it is vital to view their growth as competent library/ information researchers as the key ingredient in their success at our universities and colleges. To interject, the term research skills will be employed throughout this essay when referring to library research skills. It is understood that research skills or other forms of information seeking, gathering and interpretation are hardly the exclusive province of the library. However, most academic programs, especially in the humanities and social sciences have a symbiotic relationship with academic libraries that supports many of their endeavors. As a library research pedagogue, a key element in directing student research, has been a thorough overview of the information seeking skills necessary for compiling and submitting college level term projects.
PROCEDURAL NOTE The bulk of this case essay will outline a program employed at the University of Notre Dame, Penn State and other universities I have been associated with. The Research Assistance Program or RAP was specially developed to enhance research skills in African American undergraduates. As will be discussed later, a key element of the Research Assistance Program entailed research mentoring. Students were encouraged to identify a faculty librarian or teaching faculty with whom they could develop an instructional relationship with.
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Over the past twenty-seven years as both a high school and college instructor I have come to view relationships as a form of pedagogy4- one that is especially relevant for teaching African American students with shortcomings in their preparation for college. The past twenty years of research on instructional communication has identified several interpersonal variables that are positively related to learning. Variables such as immediacy, communicator style, affinity seeking, caring, compliance-gaining have contributed to an understanding of the dynamic student-teacher relationship and how it results in student learning.5 In other words, it is essential to realize that student/ teacher interaction is both relational as well as content driven. As suggested by Barbara J. Robinson-Shade in her compendium dealing with culture and learning styles, developing our referential and ego support skills as instructors is pivotal if we seek to improve the research skills of minority students.6 In definition, referential skills involve the pedagogue’s ability to explain things clearly, thus facilitating understanding. For many minority students understanding the instructor’s goals and objectives will help reduce their feelings of uncertainty and tentativeness. Ego support skills are the more subjective elements of the relational learning process. Encouragement, clear confirmation of their success or constructive criticism of where they might need improvement, are elements of ego support skills. Simply showing a clear interest in the student helps built the confidence many minority students need to succeed in academia. In short, ego support skills are communication skills that will help students believe in themselves. Empowered students feel competent to perform in-class tasks. And empowered students report learning more and having higher levels of motivation than students who are not. Proving ego support may be a way of motivating students.7 From cursory observations and anecdotal comments from librarians and other faculty involved in Research Assistant Program, as the student’ research competence grew many African Americans developed the confidence to take on further challenges in their major course of study. But before we present the case study, an underlying subtext for designing programs to help these minority students succeed is the phenomenon of cognitive style. Although a thorough treatment of cognition style is well beyond the scope of this case analysis, a basic overview is vital in understanding the role cognition style plays in teaching African American undergraduates.8
RELATIONSHIP AS PEDAGOGY: COGNITIVE STYLE AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS
OF
Many factors affect how well African American undergraduates develop their research competencies. Not the least of which is the set of mental operating perceptions in which these student give, receive and store information. The manner in which an individual’s perception is influenced by sensory data are often called their cognitive style. Cognitive styles are the many ways students think and order their environment. They are also the sensory preferences of the individual or group. More importantly, and this is more culturally sensitive, cognitive styles are the ways
which people formulate and communicate ideas. As cited in the literature, even as far back as in the seminal work on learning styles by Hermann A. Witkin,9 individuals and groups usually have a tendency toward a particular cognitive styles. Field dependent, field independent, conceptualizing style, reflectiveness or impulsivity learning modes, constricted or flexible control modes of cognition are just a few learning styles that individuals use to bring order to the learning process. As indicated by Herman A. Witkin, African American students have a tendency toward a field dependent mode of cognition. A field dependent learner will more easily understand input data (i.e., course content) if it is presented as part of the whole picture. He or she has a propensity for deductive reasoning. They start with the general and work their way to the specifics of a problem. A field dependent learner tends to experience his or her environment more subjectively and does better at an academic task if he or she connects on a personal level with the pedagogue. The field dependent learner has a strong interest in people and is drawn to socially oriented subjects. Field dependency is less analytical and more synergetic in performing an academic task. This is to say they tend to use and rely on approximation rather exactness. Anecdotal evidence is perceived as valid especially as it applies to the study of the human condition such as in the social sciences or humanities.10 Since the field dependent individual has a strong interest in people and their subjective qualities within the learning environment, they search for facial cues, body language, and tone of voice in the individuals they work with. If they perceive that the instructor is aloof and not interested in them, they will have tendency not to do well at a particular task or in specific classroom or computer lab setting. On the other hand, the field independent learner is more analytical and objectively oriented. This type of learner is more of an inductive type. They thrive in a pedagogic environment which proceeds from the specific to the general. They view knowledge and their environment in discrete independent elements. In terms of interaction with the pedagogue, they are more socially detached and might appear cold and distant to a field dependent students. They tend toward a “just the facts” approach to learning. In contrast, observers describe mainstream white Americans as valuing independence, analytical thinking, objectivity, and accuracy. These values translate into learning experience that focus on competition, information, test and grades and linear logic.11 Most of us can easily recognize these values as the core cognition modalities of our education system and society. But they are not the values that many African American students from disadvantaged backgrounds are acculturated into and in many cases their poor school performance may be partially attributed to cultural incongruities in their learning style. These incongruities according to some social theorists arise because many Blacks aren’t part of the culture of power from which a certain type of cognitive style or learning modality has arisen. This culture of power as coined by Lisa Delpit and other cognition theorists is based upon a middle class/upper middle class value system, which by default benefits those raised in it. Children from middle-class homes tend to do better in school than those from non middle-class homes because the
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culture of the school is based on the culture of the upper/and middle classes of those in power.12 This means that middleclass students come to school with all the accoutrements of the culture of power already in place, including a cognitive style congruent with the school culture. As a cautionary note, drawing a relationship between academic achievement and culture or social class is not an exact science. But with regard to the African American undergraduates, issues of culture and class as they affect learning remain a background element. For example, the majority of middle-class families, specifically white middle-class, have middle class friends, relatives and send their kids to middle class schools. Blacks on the other hand even if they are middle class have working or lower class relatives or friends and reside in mixed class neighborhoods. African Americans seldom sever ties with their extended family who play a role in socializing their children. The majority of African Americans are first generation middle-class, but retain working or lower class values and culture. Many Whites, if not a significant majority, have been culturally middle class for at least a generation. What is important to keep at the forefront when discussing cognitive style and culture is that social class or race although not a proven behavioral determinant is nonetheless a statement of probability that a behavior (a learning style) is likely to occur. The African American student who we may be interacting with may have a proclivity toward a certain style of learning. It has been my experience over the past twenty years that being aware of these variations can be helpful in designing instruction or research assistant programs for this clientele.
CASE NOTE: THE RESEARCH ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (RAP) The Research Assistance Program, or RAP, was a need-centered program that provided African American students with one-on-one library research mentoring.13 Working closely with various minority students’ associations, admissions counselors and teaching faculty, students were identified and provided with the necessary class work to enhance their research skills. The most important features of RAP were: 1. The high priority placed on individualized research mentoring. 2. Development of critical thinking skills pertaining to the selection and analysis of various library research tools. 3. Developing the research confidence of our student clientele that aided them in successfully completing their degrees. It should be noted here that the number of students involved in RAP varied from semester to semester. At the University of Notre Dame, I and two other librarians plus three faculty members from the Freshmen Composition Program would mentor between 30 and 40 students in any given calendar year. Here at Penn State Harrisburg, a medium- sized branch campus serving 3000 students, I along with two professors from the School of Education presently mentor about a dozen minority students in any given semester. With the tremendous growth in both computerized and
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traditional paper source housed in our libraries, coupled with the fact that a high percentage of African American undergraduates still come from socioeconomic environment which have left them significantly less prepared for college, the goal of RAP was to offer individualized assistance to students in research instruction beyond the normal library instruction sessions or lab. Although the administration of RAP varied from university to university, collaboration between librarians, admission counselors, teaching faculty, and African American student groups was imperative to the success of this program. Students were encouraged to contract with an individual librarian as their research mentor. As part of the students and faculty commitment to RAP both parties agree to meet at designated time throughout the semester to confer on their research project. For example, we would contract with a student to meet with him or her on a “first Tuesday” of the month or depending on the student’s need, the student and faculty would meet more often. In addition, students were asked to sign the RAP description sheet that served as a good faith contract indicating their commitment to the program (see Appendix). I have found over the years that when both student and faculty make a commitment of their time through such a contract, it often helped legitimize the pedagogic seriousness of this library program. Four broad skills objectives were emphasized throughout a student’s participation in the Research Assistance Program. They were: 1. To assist students with formulating a more focus research topic. To help them identify proper descriptors, search terms, subject heading and other controlled vocabulary germane to their research topics. 2. To teach effective search strategies or techniques when using an electronic reference tool. 3. To help students discern the difference between general Internet sources (i.e., documents found via a Internet search engines such as Yahoo or Google) and information located through proprietary or refereed databases. As cited earlier in this narrative proprietary databases such as ProQuest Direct, EconLit, JSTOR, IEEE, Westlaw, FirstSearch, etc. need to be introduced to students as soon as possible in order that they understand that the most pertinent, credible and authoritative types of research are most likely found in these sources. 4. To teach information seeking as a process that involves critical thinking and decision making.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 1—FORMULATING TOPIC
A
RESEARCH
Teaching or more correctly mentoring effective research skills in the current electronic information environment involves more than demonstrating the mechanical skills of navigating proprietary databases and other Internet sources. Assisting students with defining or articulating their information needs via a well defined research topic was one of the first skill objectives student involved in RAP were confronted with. Within the first meeting, we try to informally discuss the nature and scope of their project. For many of students, this would be their first attempt at doing college
level research either in the form of a unit writing assignment or the beginning of a term research project. As stated earlier, research on learning styles has indicated that African Americans have a propensity toward field dependent learning. Cognitive specificity, that is the tendency to narrow down a given research inquiry is not as operative as in a field independent learner.14 Subsequently many African American undergraduates may come to our first session
with a broad or undefined topic such as racism, drug abuse or profiling and have not begun the specificity process in order to get a workable search inquiry. A host of procedures for helping students narrow down a topic maybe employed at this point. For example, having the student pose their topic in the form of question often helps them see the complexity involved in a given topic. Having them read an article on some aspect of racism and then delineating the most
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pertinent ideas in the article often helps them to specify what they wish to research. However those of us involved in the Research Assistance Program have often found that the conversation itself, which takes place with the student in the initial session as the mentoring relationship is established, often helps facilitate the learning process. I have discovered this to be preferable to having the students systematically run through an online tutorial or having them take some sort of library diagnostic, which I have done in the past. A faceto-face discussion concerning what the student wanted to research was more effective in eliciting topic specificity. For African Americans, relationship is form of pedagogy that more directly links to their natural cognitive or learning style. As cited earlier in this case essay, ego support skills, that is a teaching modality that stresses encouragement, confirmation, personal rapport and other forms of affective behavior were key in developing research competencies in these students. Within the context of these informal discussions, students would be introduced to such research tools as LC Subject headings, subjective specific thesauri of the social sciences and sciences. Gradually within the first couple of sessions many students begin to appreciate the need to use controlled vocabulary in their formulation of a workable research topic. Once the need to establish a clear and “doable” research inquiry was accomplished, this helped facilitate the other skill objectives within RAP.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 2—EFFECTIVE SEARCH STRATEGIES Beyond teaching the mechanical skills that are necessary for navigating in the new information environment, tutoring students in effective search strategies is equally important. Although many of our incoming undergraduates have been employing the Internet for research during high school, their awareness of the information available on the numerous proprietary and academic online reference tools is often lacking. Search strategies that were viable on various Internet search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Lycos and DogPile, etc., will not work on many specialized academic databases that are common on our university library web pages. JSTOR, EconLit, Web of Science, Historical Abstracts, Academic Universe, ProQuest Direct, FirstSearch, the Health and Safety Science Abstracts and other online research tools have search protocols that vary from your standard Internet navigational tools. Differences in truncation, field and proximity searching, boolean protocols and specialized features that can limit your search to peer review, empirical research, case studies, document type are not yet apart of the students research competencies. These complexities of library research are especially problematic to many African American students whose preparation to deal effectively with this new research environment may have been hamstrung by the poor preparation they received during their pre-college years. Within the Research Assistance Program we have taken time beyond the normal library instruction classes to mentor these individuals concerning these complexities of generating authoritative research for their papers. It was an information epiphany to many of students that there is a difference between searching Google vs. ProQuest Education Complete. The normal one term or ill defined free-text (i.e., shotgun) searches that work
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perfectly fine for their high school research will not yield the specificity of information that using the search protocols of ProQuest or the myriad of other proprietary online reference tools that have become second nature to those of us who assist students with their research on a daily basis. Although the problems outlined are hardly unique to African American undergraduates, they become compounded for individuals who preparation for college level research is at times lacking. Not all incoming African Americans come from deficient high schools. However, the literature has indicated that nationwide less than 35% of African Americans complete a four-year college degree and these numbers haven’t significantly improved over the last twenty-five years.15 I believe a big part of this failure can be partly attributed to their inability to do college level research.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 3—DISCERNMENT DOCUMENT
AND THE
Understanding the difference between information located through a general Internet search engines and information gleaned from an academic database such as PAIS, PsycLit or MLA Bibliography is critical in their maturation as student researchers. Beginning in the early nineties with the emergence of web browsers such as Mosaic and later Netscape and Internet Explorer, surfing the Internet or World Wide Web for information became easier. Cumbersome methods of FTP involving GO, GET, PUT, ZIP and UNZIP commands along with Gopher clients were no longer needed for the average searcher to use the Internet. A cursory review of the literature analyzing how the average high school student does his or her research confirms that the use of electronic documents located on an Internet search engine, is how most of our incoming freshmen gather information. However, despite the vast amount of useful documentation located on the Internet much of it isn’t peer reviewed. Nor does it undergo the simplest form of information quality control that is so typical of research materials obtained from peer review journals of the social sciences, humanities and the sciences. Although the academic publishing cycle has been better integrated into the NET via various proprietary files purchased and housed on our university library web pages, college freshmen do not make the distinction between information located through Yahoo and scholarly research gleaned from JSTOR, the MLA Bibliography or the Environmental Universe. The problem of source equivalence among the typical undergraduate becomes even more problematic when assisting African Americans students. In RAP it has been my experience that students vary greatly in their skill level when it come to using computerized research tools. On the one hand we have students who have been using the Internet for years either at home or more typically in the case of African Americans at their public library or school.16 These individuals have the mechanics of surfing the Net in place. At the other end of the spectrum, and this is more common, we have African American undergraduates who have never spent any serious time surfing the Internet and their searching mechanics are either nonexistent or elementary at best. Ironically many of the librarians involved in RAP have found this latter group easier to introduce to the right type of scholarly appropriate materials than those individuals who
view the Internet as the depository of all knowledge. From day one it is much easier to direct these individuals to scholarly databases, those that will yield the most authoritative and relevant information given the nature and scope of their undergraduate writing assignments. If there is one overall epistemological paradigm of the Research Assistant Programs it is the notion that not all sources or materials they locate on the Internet are created equal. There is a critical difference between using a general Internet source dealing with substance abuse and an article on the same subject found in an empirical, peer reviewed journal generated from PyscLit, Sociological Abstract or the Web of Science database. To reiterate, the above problem of source equivalence aren’t unique to African American students. It is endemic in our incoming undergraduate population. What is important here is that these deficits in African American students are not just minor transitions in their sojourn from high school to college level research. They can seriously impede their ability to do college level work, thus contributing to the retention problems that are so prevalent. The one-on-one mentoring that is at the heart of RAP where African Americans connect at some personal level with the instructor (i.e., ego support skills), although labor intensive for teacher and student alike, is one of the few strategies I have been associated with over the past twenty years that actually work.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 4 —INFORMATION SEEKING PROCESS
AS A
This objective can be viewed as a synthesis of the previous three and yet presents its own instructional problems in the student’s overall mastery of college level research. At this point in the student’s involvement in RAP, we try to get the student to begin the process of discerning the nature of the assignment and what will be the most appropriate research tools deemed relevant to the task at hand. Decisions concerning the best sources to employ for an assignment is perhaps the most difficult skill to impart, not only African Americans but undergraduates in general. As exemplified earlier, source equivalence is a recurring problem since incoming freshmen don’t distinguish between a document generated from a Google or Yahoo search and those located through a peer reviewed academic database such as JSTOR or Historical Abstracts. Even after the student begins to make these distinctions, getting them to adopt this same critical attitude to peer reviewed scholarly sources is the next big step in expanding their research IQ. Here at Penn State Harrisburg, I engaged in a lot of oneon-one instruction with the criminal justice students. Several African American students who I have worked with have made incredible strides as researchers and yet they are just beginning to apply this next step of critical source analysis skills to academic research tools. For example, two of the major sources that students employ in their criminal justice research are Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJA) and the Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI). The latter is a full-text database providing access to journal articles and trade publications pertinent to the discipline. However the total number of criminal justice periodicals that are indexed in the CJPI number around 150. To the laymen or undergraduate student, this might seem like an
adequate number. However, the CJA which is a citational databases containing references to thousands of peer reviewed journals, monographic works, trade publications, statistical studies, dissertations and a host of international research, provides a scope of coverage that supersede anything found in the CJPI. In short, Criminal Justice Abstracts more accurately reflects the academic publishing cycle in the criminal justice discipline that is not even approached in the student’s exclusive use of the full-text CJPI. There is so much more pertinent information found in the CJA that, in order to conduct a thorough literature search, they need to be cognizant of these content differences. They need to develop and more importantly maintain a critical eye as they select from and employ datafiles and other research genre in the execution of a written assignment. It has been my observation in working with African American students that nurturing critical assessment skills is the most problematic area of developing their research IQ, and that the one-on-one mentoring that RAP provides makes this process more attainable in the short time we have with these individuals.
CONCLUSION It should be stressed that teaching critical thinking and decision-making skills is something that all students, not just African Americans undergraduates, need in order to negotiate the labyrinth of college level research. Still, as outlined through the above description of the RAP program, African American students in predominately white institutions bring special learning styles and deficits as they begin college work. With appropriate sensitivity, time, and attention, these issues can be successfully addressed. If we in the academic world are at all serious about the retention of not only African American students but also other at-risk clientele, it is vital that we find the time and energy to mentor these individuals into the world of academic research.
NOTES
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REFERENCES
1. Michael Avery, “Retention Issues and Special Admission Students,” Journal of Negro Education 68 (Winter 1999): 23– 41. 2. Philip R. Newman & Barbara M. Newman, “What Does it Take to Have Positive Impact on Minority Students’ College Retention,” Adolescence 34 (Fall 1999): 483– 492; George Sailes, “An Investigation of Black Student Attrition at a Large Predominantely White Midwestern University,” Western Journal of Black Studies 26 (1993): 385– 402. 3. Margaret Lynn, “Toward a Critical Race Pedagogy,” Urban Education 33No. 5 (999): 606 – 626. 4. Patrick Andrew Hall, “The Role of Affectivity in Instructing People of Color: Some Implications for Bibliographic Instruction,” Library Trends 39 (Winter 1991): 316 –326. 5. Ann Bainbridge & Marian L. Houser, “The Teacher-Student Relationship as an Interpersonal Relationship,” Communication Education 49 (July 2000): 207. 6. Barbara J. Robinson Shade, Culture, Style and the Educative Process (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas 1989). 7. Bainbridge & Houser, “Toward a Critical,” p. 208. 8. At this juncture it should be stressed that although one’s cultural background has a definite effect on cognitive and learning styles, it is a serious error to conclude that all African Americans have the same learning modality. Drawing a relationship between academic achievement and cultural background is a problematic task; however, many African American students, because of poor preparation at the elementary and secondary level, don’t possess
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9. 10.
11. 12. 13.
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the research skills necessary to compete within the academic environment. See Lisa Delpit, Culture and Power in the Classroom (Westport, Conn: Bergin & Gavery, 1991); Craig L. Frisby, “One Giant Step Backward: Myths of Black Cultural Learning Styles,” School Psychology Review 22 (No. 3, 1993): 535–557; Tina Q. Richardson, “Black Culture Learning Styles: Is it Really a Myth?” School Psychology Review 22 (No. 3, 1993): 562–567. Herman A. Witkin,” Personality Through Perception: An Experimental and Clinical Study (New York: Harper 1954). As an experiment, I have deliberately taken a more field dependent approach in compiling this case study. My use of a story narrative at the beginning of this paper would normally be perceived as inappropriate for academic study. However, the use of a personal antidote to connect with the reader on a more subjective level configures this case analysis within a field dependent learning paradigm. In short, personal narrative is a way of knowing or instructing. See Donald Porkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988). Susan W. Graybill, “Questions of Race and Culture: How They Relate to the Classroom for African American Students,” The Clearing House 70 (July/August 1997): 315. Delpit, “Culture and Power,” p. 123. It should be noted that the Research Assistance Program was in many cases an adjunct to the libraries’ normal information instruction or bibliographic instruction activities, As cited in the
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literature on the learning styles of African Americans, the need to connect on a personal level in the educational setting has proven to be a signature attribute of the Black learning style. See Bernadett M. Gadzella, William G. Masten & Jiafen Huang, “The Difference Between African-American and Caucasian Students on Critical Thinking and Learning Styles,” College Student Journal 33 (December 1999) 538 –542; Doris B. Matthews & John V. Hamby, “A Comparison of Learning Styles of High School and College/University Students,” Clearing House 68 (March-April 1995):257–271; Joan Thrower Timm, “The Relationship Between Culture and Cognitive Style: A Review of the Evidence and Some Reflections for the Classroom,” Mid-Western Educational Researcher 12 (Spring 1999):36 – 44. 14. Timm, “The Relationship,” p. 41. 15. Avery, “Retention Issues,” pp. 23– 41. 16. Despite the preponderance of computers in the homes of Caucasian and Asian Americans, there does exist a digital divide in computer ownership in African American homes, According to the latest figures, less than 30% of African Americans own a PC or laptop. This compares to nearly 68% of Caucasian and Asian Americans who have personal computers at their residence. See Kelly Ervin, “Traveling the Superinformation Highway: African Americans’ Perceptions and Use of Cyberspace Technology, ” Journal of Black Studies 29 (January 1999): 398 – 409; Kelvin M. Pollard, “America’s Racial and Ethnic Minorities,” Population Bulletin 54 (September 1999): 1– 46.
Developing Research Skills in African-American Students: A Case Note by Patrick Hall
T
hirty-three years ago as a freshmen at a small Jesuit college in upstate New York, I, like so many freshmen, was presented with the task of learning how to conduct college-level research. For many of us in the social sciences and humanities, this meant negotiating the complexities of a typical academic library. My learning curve became even more difficult due to the socioeconomic make-up of this college, which drew students from upper-class backgrounds whose academic preparation in high school far outpaced my own. I was one of only a handful of African American students, and we were considered somewhat of an experiment at the time. The Jesuit admissions office wanted to see how well we would perform in an academically competitive private institution. I believe it is not an overstatement to suggest that one of the most pertinent accomplishments for young African American college students is improving their college-level research skills. I was fortunate enough to find a faculty mentor, a librarian, who took the time, over the course of several months, to give me the necessary research “building blocks” to develop what is sometimes referred to as a “research IQ”.1 Today, with a host of electronic sources available through the Internet and proprietary databases housed on the library web page, developing the research IQ of African American students and other special needs clientele is even more critical. When we review statistics dealing with the retention of African American undergraduates, especially at predominately white institutions, many of the reasons why these young people are not graduating can be traced to their shortcomings in this area.2 A student unable to look-up a magazine or journal article, either through a manual index or through a proprietary database, faces a serious handicap. If you haven’t learned the critical thinking skills necessary to distinguish between the best resources on a given research topic, or if you do not know how to cite your sources properly, you may have great difficulty submitting acceptable college-level research. As a research pedagogue, I have worked with African American students, and other students of color, who have never done research papers in which they had to cite their sources. Tragically, this is not been an isolated occurrence. The notion of bibliography, footnotes or endnotes and everything else we Patrick Hall is Associate Librarian for Public Affairs and Education, Penn State University, Harrisburg, PA ⬍[email protected]⬎.
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take for granted that a student should know before they come to college can no longer be assumed. Far too many African American students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not possess these research accoutrements as they begin their studies. In addition, and this is becoming more common in our new information environment, if a student cannot make the critical distinction between a source located via a general Internet search engine like Yahoo, Google or Lycos and material lifted from refereed proprietary databases such as PsycLit, JSTOR, Web of Science, Education Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts or the Environmental Universe, then their efforts to obtain a college degree are extremely hampered. As alluded to in several studies on the academic achievement of the Black undergraduate, the mastery of research skills, that is the ability to collect, organized and interpret data out of books, journals, proprietary databases as well as Internet sites into a coherent term project is the intellectual currency that young African Americans students must master.3 If we who work with minority students on a daily basis are at all serious about their retention and intellectual growth, it is vital to view their growth as competent library/ information researchers as the key ingredient in their success at our universities and colleges. To interject, the term research skills will be employed throughout this essay when referring to library research skills. It is understood that research skills or other forms of information seeking, gathering and interpretation are hardly the exclusive province of the library. However, most academic programs, especially in the humanities and social sciences have a symbiotic relationship with academic libraries that supports many of their endeavors. As a library research pedagogue, a key element in directing student research, has been a thorough overview of the information seeking skills necessary for compiling and submitting college level term projects.
PROCEDURAL NOTE The bulk of this case essay will outline a program employed at the University of Notre Dame, Penn State and other universities I have been associated with. The Research Assistance Program or RAP was specially developed to enhance research skills in African American undergraduates. As will be discussed later, a key element of the Research Assistance Program entailed research mentoring. Students were encouraged to identify a faculty librarian or teaching faculty with whom they could develop an instructional relationship with.
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Over the past twenty-seven years as both a high school and college instructor I have come to view relationships as a form of pedagogy4- one that is especially relevant for teaching African American students with shortcomings in their preparation for college. The past twenty years of research on instructional communication has identified several interpersonal variables that are positively related to learning. Variables such as immediacy, communicator style, affinity seeking, caring, compliance-gaining have contributed to an understanding of the dynamic student-teacher relationship and how it results in student learning.5 In other words, it is essential to realize that student/ teacher interaction is both relational as well as content driven. As suggested by Barbara J. Robinson-Shade in her compendium dealing with culture and learning styles, developing our referential and ego support skills as instructors is pivotal if we seek to improve the research skills of minority students.6 In definition, referential skills involve the pedagogue’s ability to explain things clearly, thus facilitating understanding. For many minority students understanding the instructor’s goals and objectives will help reduce their feelings of uncertainty and tentativeness. Ego support skills are the more subjective elements of the relational learning process. Encouragement, clear confirmation of their success or constructive criticism of where they might need improvement, are elements of ego support skills. Simply showing a clear interest in the student helps built the confidence many minority students need to succeed in academia. In short, ego support skills are communication skills that will help students believe in themselves. Empowered students feel competent to perform in-class tasks. And empowered students report learning more and having higher levels of motivation than students who are not. Proving ego support may be a way of motivating students.7 From cursory observations and anecdotal comments from librarians and other faculty involved in Research Assistant Program, as the student’ research competence grew many African Americans developed the confidence to take on further challenges in their major course of study. But before we present the case study, an underlying subtext for designing programs to help these minority students succeed is the phenomenon of cognitive style. Although a thorough treatment of cognition style is well beyond the scope of this case analysis, a basic overview is vital in understanding the role cognition style plays in teaching African American undergraduates.8
RELATIONSHIP AS PEDAGOGY: COGNITIVE STYLE AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS
OF
Many factors affect how well African American undergraduates develop their research competencies. Not the least of which is the set of mental operating perceptions in which these student give, receive and store information. The manner in which an individual’s perception is influenced by sensory data are often called their cognitive style. Cognitive styles are the many ways students think and order their environment. They are also the sensory preferences of the individual or group. More importantly, and this is more culturally sensitive, cognitive styles are the ways
which people formulate and communicate ideas. As cited in the literature, even as far back as in the seminal work on learning styles by Hermann A. Witkin,9 individuals and groups usually have a tendency toward a particular cognitive styles. Field dependent, field independent, conceptualizing style, reflectiveness or impulsivity learning modes, constricted or flexible control modes of cognition are just a few learning styles that individuals use to bring order to the learning process. As indicated by Herman A. Witkin, African American students have a tendency toward a field dependent mode of cognition. A field dependent learner will more easily understand input data (i.e., course content) if it is presented as part of the whole picture. He or she has a propensity for deductive reasoning. They start with the general and work their way to the specifics of a problem. A field dependent learner tends to experience his or her environment more subjectively and does better at an academic task if he or she connects on a personal level with the pedagogue. The field dependent learner has a strong interest in people and is drawn to socially oriented subjects. Field dependency is less analytical and more synergetic in performing an academic task. This is to say they tend to use and rely on approximation rather exactness. Anecdotal evidence is perceived as valid especially as it applies to the study of the human condition such as in the social sciences or humanities.10 Since the field dependent individual has a strong interest in people and their subjective qualities within the learning environment, they search for facial cues, body language, and tone of voice in the individuals they work with. If they perceive that the instructor is aloof and not interested in them, they will have tendency not to do well at a particular task or in specific classroom or computer lab setting. On the other hand, the field independent learner is more analytical and objectively oriented. This type of learner is more of an inductive type. They thrive in a pedagogic environment which proceeds from the specific to the general. They view knowledge and their environment in discrete independent elements. In terms of interaction with the pedagogue, they are more socially detached and might appear cold and distant to a field dependent students. They tend toward a “just the facts” approach to learning. In contrast, observers describe mainstream white Americans as valuing independence, analytical thinking, objectivity, and accuracy. These values translate into learning experience that focus on competition, information, test and grades and linear logic.11 Most of us can easily recognize these values as the core cognition modalities of our education system and society. But they are not the values that many African American students from disadvantaged backgrounds are acculturated into and in many cases their poor school performance may be partially attributed to cultural incongruities in their learning style. These incongruities according to some social theorists arise because many Blacks aren’t part of the culture of power from which a certain type of cognitive style or learning modality has arisen. This culture of power as coined by Lisa Delpit and other cognition theorists is based upon a middle class/upper middle class value system, which by default benefits those raised in it. Children from middle-class homes tend to do better in school than those from non middle-class homes because the
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culture of the school is based on the culture of the upper/and middle classes of those in power.12 This means that middleclass students come to school with all the accoutrements of the culture of power already in place, including a cognitive style congruent with the school culture. As a cautionary note, drawing a relationship between academic achievement and culture or social class is not an exact science. But with regard to the African American undergraduates, issues of culture and class as they affect learning remain a background element. For example, the majority of middle-class families, specifically white middle-class, have middle class friends, relatives and send their kids to middle class schools. Blacks on the other hand even if they are middle class have working or lower class relatives or friends and reside in mixed class neighborhoods. African Americans seldom sever ties with their extended family who play a role in socializing their children. The majority of African Americans are first generation middle-class, but retain working or lower class values and culture. Many Whites, if not a significant majority, have been culturally middle class for at least a generation. What is important to keep at the forefront when discussing cognitive style and culture is that social class or race although not a proven behavioral determinant is nonetheless a statement of probability that a behavior (a learning style) is likely to occur. The African American student who we may be interacting with may have a proclivity toward a certain style of learning. It has been my experience over the past twenty years that being aware of these variations can be helpful in designing instruction or research assistant programs for this clientele.
CASE NOTE: THE RESEARCH ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (RAP) The Research Assistance Program, or RAP, was a need-centered program that provided African American students with one-on-one library research mentoring.13 Working closely with various minority students’ associations, admissions counselors and teaching faculty, students were identified and provided with the necessary class work to enhance their research skills. The most important features of RAP were: 1. The high priority placed on individualized research mentoring. 2. Development of critical thinking skills pertaining to the selection and analysis of various library research tools. 3. Developing the research confidence of our student clientele that aided them in successfully completing their degrees. It should be noted here that the number of students involved in RAP varied from semester to semester. At the University of Notre Dame, I and two other librarians plus three faculty members from the Freshmen Composition Program would mentor between 30 and 40 students in any given calendar year. Here at Penn State Harrisburg, a medium- sized branch campus serving 3000 students, I along with two professors from the School of Education presently mentor about a dozen minority students in any given semester. With the tremendous growth in both computerized and
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traditional paper source housed in our libraries, coupled with the fact that a high percentage of African American undergraduates still come from socioeconomic environment which have left them significantly less prepared for college, the goal of RAP was to offer individualized assistance to students in research instruction beyond the normal library instruction sessions or lab. Although the administration of RAP varied from university to university, collaboration between librarians, admission counselors, teaching faculty, and African American student groups was imperative to the success of this program. Students were encouraged to contract with an individual librarian as their research mentor. As part of the students and faculty commitment to RAP both parties agree to meet at designated time throughout the semester to confer on their research project. For example, we would contract with a student to meet with him or her on a “first Tuesday” of the month or depending on the student’s need, the student and faculty would meet more often. In addition, students were asked to sign the RAP description sheet that served as a good faith contract indicating their commitment to the program (see Appendix). I have found over the years that when both student and faculty make a commitment of their time through such a contract, it often helped legitimize the pedagogic seriousness of this library program. Four broad skills objectives were emphasized throughout a student’s participation in the Research Assistance Program. They were: 1. To assist students with formulating a more focus research topic. To help them identify proper descriptors, search terms, subject heading and other controlled vocabulary germane to their research topics. 2. To teach effective search strategies or techniques when using an electronic reference tool. 3. To help students discern the difference between general Internet sources (i.e., documents found via a Internet search engines such as Yahoo or Google) and information located through proprietary or refereed databases. As cited earlier in this narrative proprietary databases such as ProQuest Direct, EconLit, JSTOR, IEEE, Westlaw, FirstSearch, etc. need to be introduced to students as soon as possible in order that they understand that the most pertinent, credible and authoritative types of research are most likely found in these sources. 4. To teach information seeking as a process that involves critical thinking and decision making.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 1—FORMULATING TOPIC
A
RESEARCH
Teaching or more correctly mentoring effective research skills in the current electronic information environment involves more than demonstrating the mechanical skills of navigating proprietary databases and other Internet sources. Assisting students with defining or articulating their information needs via a well defined research topic was one of the first skill objectives student involved in RAP were confronted with. Within the first meeting, we try to informally discuss the nature and scope of their project. For many of students, this would be their first attempt at doing college
level research either in the form of a unit writing assignment or the beginning of a term research project. As stated earlier, research on learning styles has indicated that African Americans have a propensity toward field dependent learning. Cognitive specificity, that is the tendency to narrow down a given research inquiry is not as operative as in a field independent learner.14 Subsequently many African American undergraduates may come to our first session
with a broad or undefined topic such as racism, drug abuse or profiling and have not begun the specificity process in order to get a workable search inquiry. A host of procedures for helping students narrow down a topic maybe employed at this point. For example, having the student pose their topic in the form of question often helps them see the complexity involved in a given topic. Having them read an article on some aspect of racism and then delineating the most
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pertinent ideas in the article often helps them to specify what they wish to research. However those of us involved in the Research Assistance Program have often found that the conversation itself, which takes place with the student in the initial session as the mentoring relationship is established, often helps facilitate the learning process. I have discovered this to be preferable to having the students systematically run through an online tutorial or having them take some sort of library diagnostic, which I have done in the past. A faceto-face discussion concerning what the student wanted to research was more effective in eliciting topic specificity. For African Americans, relationship is form of pedagogy that more directly links to their natural cognitive or learning style. As cited earlier in this case essay, ego support skills, that is a teaching modality that stresses encouragement, confirmation, personal rapport and other forms of affective behavior were key in developing research competencies in these students. Within the context of these informal discussions, students would be introduced to such research tools as LC Subject headings, subjective specific thesauri of the social sciences and sciences. Gradually within the first couple of sessions many students begin to appreciate the need to use controlled vocabulary in their formulation of a workable research topic. Once the need to establish a clear and “doable” research inquiry was accomplished, this helped facilitate the other skill objectives within RAP.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 2—EFFECTIVE SEARCH STRATEGIES Beyond teaching the mechanical skills that are necessary for navigating in the new information environment, tutoring students in effective search strategies is equally important. Although many of our incoming undergraduates have been employing the Internet for research during high school, their awareness of the information available on the numerous proprietary and academic online reference tools is often lacking. Search strategies that were viable on various Internet search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Lycos and DogPile, etc., will not work on many specialized academic databases that are common on our university library web pages. JSTOR, EconLit, Web of Science, Historical Abstracts, Academic Universe, ProQuest Direct, FirstSearch, the Health and Safety Science Abstracts and other online research tools have search protocols that vary from your standard Internet navigational tools. Differences in truncation, field and proximity searching, boolean protocols and specialized features that can limit your search to peer review, empirical research, case studies, document type are not yet apart of the students research competencies. These complexities of library research are especially problematic to many African American students whose preparation to deal effectively with this new research environment may have been hamstrung by the poor preparation they received during their pre-college years. Within the Research Assistance Program we have taken time beyond the normal library instruction classes to mentor these individuals concerning these complexities of generating authoritative research for their papers. It was an information epiphany to many of students that there is a difference between searching Google vs. ProQuest Education Complete. The normal one term or ill defined free-text (i.e., shotgun) searches that work
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perfectly fine for their high school research will not yield the specificity of information that using the search protocols of ProQuest or the myriad of other proprietary online reference tools that have become second nature to those of us who assist students with their research on a daily basis. Although the problems outlined are hardly unique to African American undergraduates, they become compounded for individuals who preparation for college level research is at times lacking. Not all incoming African Americans come from deficient high schools. However, the literature has indicated that nationwide less than 35% of African Americans complete a four-year college degree and these numbers haven’t significantly improved over the last twenty-five years.15 I believe a big part of this failure can be partly attributed to their inability to do college level research.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 3—DISCERNMENT DOCUMENT
AND THE
Understanding the difference between information located through a general Internet search engines and information gleaned from an academic database such as PAIS, PsycLit or MLA Bibliography is critical in their maturation as student researchers. Beginning in the early nineties with the emergence of web browsers such as Mosaic and later Netscape and Internet Explorer, surfing the Internet or World Wide Web for information became easier. Cumbersome methods of FTP involving GO, GET, PUT, ZIP and UNZIP commands along with Gopher clients were no longer needed for the average searcher to use the Internet. A cursory review of the literature analyzing how the average high school student does his or her research confirms that the use of electronic documents located on an Internet search engine, is how most of our incoming freshmen gather information. However, despite the vast amount of useful documentation located on the Internet much of it isn’t peer reviewed. Nor does it undergo the simplest form of information quality control that is so typical of research materials obtained from peer review journals of the social sciences, humanities and the sciences. Although the academic publishing cycle has been better integrated into the NET via various proprietary files purchased and housed on our university library web pages, college freshmen do not make the distinction between information located through Yahoo and scholarly research gleaned from JSTOR, the MLA Bibliography or the Environmental Universe. The problem of source equivalence among the typical undergraduate becomes even more problematic when assisting African Americans students. In RAP it has been my experience that students vary greatly in their skill level when it come to using computerized research tools. On the one hand we have students who have been using the Internet for years either at home or more typically in the case of African Americans at their public library or school.16 These individuals have the mechanics of surfing the Net in place. At the other end of the spectrum, and this is more common, we have African American undergraduates who have never spent any serious time surfing the Internet and their searching mechanics are either nonexistent or elementary at best. Ironically many of the librarians involved in RAP have found this latter group easier to introduce to the right type of scholarly appropriate materials than those individuals who
view the Internet as the depository of all knowledge. From day one it is much easier to direct these individuals to scholarly databases, those that will yield the most authoritative and relevant information given the nature and scope of their undergraduate writing assignments. If there is one overall epistemological paradigm of the Research Assistant Programs it is the notion that not all sources or materials they locate on the Internet are created equal. There is a critical difference between using a general Internet source dealing with substance abuse and an article on the same subject found in an empirical, peer reviewed journal generated from PyscLit, Sociological Abstract or the Web of Science database. To reiterate, the above problem of source equivalence aren’t unique to African American students. It is endemic in our incoming undergraduate population. What is important here is that these deficits in African American students are not just minor transitions in their sojourn from high school to college level research. They can seriously impede their ability to do college level work, thus contributing to the retention problems that are so prevalent. The one-on-one mentoring that is at the heart of RAP where African Americans connect at some personal level with the instructor (i.e., ego support skills), although labor intensive for teacher and student alike, is one of the few strategies I have been associated with over the past twenty years that actually work.
SKILL OBJECTIVE NO. 4 —INFORMATION SEEKING PROCESS
AS A
This objective can be viewed as a synthesis of the previous three and yet presents its own instructional problems in the student’s overall mastery of college level research. At this point in the student’s involvement in RAP, we try to get the student to begin the process of discerning the nature of the assignment and what will be the most appropriate research tools deemed relevant to the task at hand. Decisions concerning the best sources to employ for an assignment is perhaps the most difficult skill to impart, not only African Americans but undergraduates in general. As exemplified earlier, source equivalence is a recurring problem since incoming freshmen don’t distinguish between a document generated from a Google or Yahoo search and those located through a peer reviewed academic database such as JSTOR or Historical Abstracts. Even after the student begins to make these distinctions, getting them to adopt this same critical attitude to peer reviewed scholarly sources is the next big step in expanding their research IQ. Here at Penn State Harrisburg, I engaged in a lot of oneon-one instruction with the criminal justice students. Several African American students who I have worked with have made incredible strides as researchers and yet they are just beginning to apply this next step of critical source analysis skills to academic research tools. For example, two of the major sources that students employ in their criminal justice research are Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJA) and the Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI). The latter is a full-text database providing access to journal articles and trade publications pertinent to the discipline. However the total number of criminal justice periodicals that are indexed in the CJPI number around 150. To the laymen or undergraduate student, this might seem like an
adequate number. However, the CJA which is a citational databases containing references to thousands of peer reviewed journals, monographic works, trade publications, statistical studies, dissertations and a host of international research, provides a scope of coverage that supersede anything found in the CJPI. In short, Criminal Justice Abstracts more accurately reflects the academic publishing cycle in the criminal justice discipline that is not even approached in the student’s exclusive use of the full-text CJPI. There is so much more pertinent information found in the CJA that, in order to conduct a thorough literature search, they need to be cognizant of these content differences. They need to develop and more importantly maintain a critical eye as they select from and employ datafiles and other research genre in the execution of a written assignment. It has been my observation in working with African American students that nurturing critical assessment skills is the most problematic area of developing their research IQ, and that the one-on-one mentoring that RAP provides makes this process more attainable in the short time we have with these individuals.
CONCLUSION It should be stressed that teaching critical thinking and decision-making skills is something that all students, not just African Americans undergraduates, need in order to negotiate the labyrinth of college level research. Still, as outlined through the above description of the RAP program, African American students in predominately white institutions bring special learning styles and deficits as they begin college work. With appropriate sensitivity, time, and attention, these issues can be successfully addressed. If we in the academic world are at all serious about the retention of not only African American students but also other at-risk clientele, it is vital that we find the time and energy to mentor these individuals into the world of academic research.
NOTES
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REFERENCES
1. Michael Avery, “Retention Issues and Special Admission Students,” Journal of Negro Education 68 (Winter 1999): 23– 41. 2. Philip R. Newman & Barbara M. Newman, “What Does it Take to Have Positive Impact on Minority Students’ College Retention,” Adolescence 34 (Fall 1999): 483– 492; George Sailes, “An Investigation of Black Student Attrition at a Large Predominantely White Midwestern University,” Western Journal of Black Studies 26 (1993): 385– 402. 3. Margaret Lynn, “Toward a Critical Race Pedagogy,” Urban Education 33No. 5 (999): 606 – 626. 4. Patrick Andrew Hall, “The Role of Affectivity in Instructing People of Color: Some Implications for Bibliographic Instruction,” Library Trends 39 (Winter 1991): 316 –326. 5. Ann Bainbridge & Marian L. Houser, “The Teacher-Student Relationship as an Interpersonal Relationship,” Communication Education 49 (July 2000): 207. 6. Barbara J. Robinson Shade, Culture, Style and the Educative Process (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas 1989). 7. Bainbridge & Houser, “Toward a Critical,” p. 208. 8. At this juncture it should be stressed that although one’s cultural background has a definite effect on cognitive and learning styles, it is a serious error to conclude that all African Americans have the same learning modality. Drawing a relationship between academic achievement and cultural background is a problematic task; however, many African American students, because of poor preparation at the elementary and secondary level, don’t possess
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9. 10.
11. 12. 13.
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the research skills necessary to compete within the academic environment. See Lisa Delpit, Culture and Power in the Classroom (Westport, Conn: Bergin & Gavery, 1991); Craig L. Frisby, “One Giant Step Backward: Myths of Black Cultural Learning Styles,” School Psychology Review 22 (No. 3, 1993): 535–557; Tina Q. Richardson, “Black Culture Learning Styles: Is it Really a Myth?” School Psychology Review 22 (No. 3, 1993): 562–567. Herman A. Witkin,” Personality Through Perception: An Experimental and Clinical Study (New York: Harper 1954). As an experiment, I have deliberately taken a more field dependent approach in compiling this case study. My use of a story narrative at the beginning of this paper would normally be perceived as inappropriate for academic study. However, the use of a personal antidote to connect with the reader on a more subjective level configures this case analysis within a field dependent learning paradigm. In short, personal narrative is a way of knowing or instructing. See Donald Porkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988). Susan W. Graybill, “Questions of Race and Culture: How They Relate to the Classroom for African American Students,” The Clearing House 70 (July/August 1997): 315. Delpit, “Culture and Power,” p. 123. It should be noted that the Research Assistance Program was in many cases an adjunct to the libraries’ normal information instruction or bibliographic instruction activities, As cited in the
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literature on the learning styles of African Americans, the need to connect on a personal level in the educational setting has proven to be a signature attribute of the Black learning style. See Bernadett M. Gadzella, William G. Masten & Jiafen Huang, “The Difference Between African-American and Caucasian Students on Critical Thinking and Learning Styles,” College Student Journal 33 (December 1999) 538 –542; Doris B. Matthews & John V. Hamby, “A Comparison of Learning Styles of High School and College/University Students,” Clearing House 68 (March-April 1995):257–271; Joan Thrower Timm, “The Relationship Between Culture and Cognitive Style: A Review of the Evidence and Some Reflections for the Classroom,” Mid-Western Educational Researcher 12 (Spring 1999):36 – 44. 14. Timm, “The Relationship,” p. 41. 15. Avery, “Retention Issues,” pp. 23– 41. 16. Despite the preponderance of computers in the homes of Caucasian and Asian Americans, there does exist a digital divide in computer ownership in African American homes, According to the latest figures, less than 30% of African Americans own a PC or laptop. This compares to nearly 68% of Caucasian and Asian Americans who have personal computers at their residence. See Kelly Ervin, “Traveling the Superinformation Highway: African Americans’ Perceptions and Use of Cyberspace Technology, ” Journal of Black Studies 29 (January 1999): 398 – 409; Kelvin M. Pollard, “America’s Racial and Ethnic Minorities,” Population Bulletin 54 (September 1999): 1– 46.