EXAMINING MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCIES OF STUDENT AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS WHO ADVISE STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS OF COLOR

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if, and to what extent, racial and ethnic identity, years of experience, education level, age, gender, advisor status, and sexual orientation are related to multicultural competence among student affairs professionals who are responsible for advising racial and ethnic student organizations at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Student organizations used for this study are distinguished by type: fraternities and sororities (Greek letter organizations); racial or ethnocultural advocacy and community organizations; and academic or social organizations. In order to elicit participants for this study, the researcher received a spreadsheet of 11,801 members from the historically known National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). However, the association has updated its name to Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Of these members, only 2,585 participants met the requirements necessary to participate in this study. The 2,585 NASPA members were invited by email to participate. Four hundred ninety participants attempted the survey, a response rate of 19.0%. Of that sample, there were 338 usable responses for analytic purposes. Multicultural competence was measured by the Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs-Preliminary 2 (MCSA-P2) Scale. The MCSA-P2 had excellent reliability ([alpha] = .93) for the sample of student affairs advisors. Data analysis of the mean, standard deviation, and internal consistency was conducted to evaluate responses. Basic descriptive statistics were used to analyze research question one. Research question two was analyzed using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to measure mean differences between advisors of multicultural and other types of student organizations. Research question three was analyzed using multiple linear regression to display differences in advisors' multicultural competency by race/ethnicity, years of experience, level of education, gender, age, advisor status, and sexual orientation. The data analysis included the examination of the univariate statistics and revealed that race, sexual orientation, and advisor status were significant predictors of multicultural competency among student affairs advisors.