¶ … universities and graduate schools offer courses or whole major programs of study in ethnically or culturally specific areas. Examples include African-American studies and Asian studies. This research explores whether students who identify with the ethnic or racial group will perform better or worse than their counterparts in those courses. The research also explores general perceptions of taking ethnic course content. The study blends information from both psychology and sociology, showing how race/ethnicity, identity, and performance all converge. As Hansen, Owen & Pan (2013) point out, the ethnic composition of a group or overall class diversity does not necessarily impact individual student performance in general. However, no known research has been conducted specifically on ethnically topical classes and the academic performance of students who identify with that group. This research could lend insight into some of the ways race, ethnicity, identity, performance anxiety, and achievement are interrelated.

There are several theoretical underpinnings to this research. One is that psychological and psychosocial variables including intimidation, cultural and social influences, biases, and the comfort of connection might impact student performance when the ethnicity of the student matches the content of the course. Intervening variables include the ethnicity of the instructor and the ethnic composition of the class.

Prior research has shown that ethnic identity impacts behavior and performance in significant ways (Tsai, Chentsova-Dutton & Wong, n.d.). Therefore, it is hypothesized that persons who self-identify with a particular ethnic group will perform better in classes directly about that ethnic group. Potential reasons why a self-identified member of a specific ethnic group might perform better than their counterparts includes familiarity with the subject matter, intimidation, cultural and social influences, biases, and the comfort of connection.

There are several terms that must be operationalized for this research. Those terms include race, ethnicity, and race/ethnic-related coursework. Race is a social construct, and not a biological reality (Sussman, 2014). Given this, there is no way to measure a person's race based on biological markers. The same is true for ethnicity. This makes it difficult to provide clear operational definitions other than those that are subjective. Based on the illegitimacy of race as a biological variable, it has been determined that the best way to define ethnicity and/or race would be to use a series of survey questions designed to solicit information from each participant. The information would relate to how the person perceives himself or herself, and also how the person believes he or she is perceived by others. Race and ethnicity therefore form the key independent variables in this research.

However, it is both important and necessary to define race and ethnicity in clear ways. Ethnicity can readily be defined as the group to which an individual believes himself or herself to be a part of, based on self-reports. This type of definition would help eliminate the problems that could otherwise arise with persons from mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds, because generally, if a person identifies strongly enough with a racial or ethnic group to have that identity impact academic performance in a class, then the cultural/ethnic or racial designator would apply. Given that most anthropologists and biologists agree that race does not exist, an operational definition of race would best depend on how a group has been labeled rather than by any objective measure such as skin color (Sussman, 2014).

Ethnicity could likewise be defined as the group to which an individual believes himself or herself to be a part of, based on self-reports. This type of definition would help eliminate the problems that could otherwise arise with persons from mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds, because generally, if a person identifies strongly enough with a racial or ethnic group to have that identity impact academic performance in a class, then the cultural/ethnic or racial designator would apply. To define academic performance, measures such as rate and extent of class participation, attendance, and grades would all be important factors.

Gender is also going to be taken into account, but not used as an experimental variable as it is not believed that gender would have any bearing on performance in race/ethnic-based classes. To properly control for gender, though, it would be critical to evaluate courses that are gender neutral in their content. Thus, courses on Latina sexuality would introduce the confounding variable of gender in a way that coursework in medieval Arabic literature would not.

Based on these operational definitions, there are two research hypotheses, as follows:

1. The first research hypothesis is that academic performance in culturally or ethnically specific courses is higher among...

This hypothesis would assume that factors like comfort with the material, familiarity with basic concepts related to the course, and self-pressure to perform well in order to "prove" membership in that community might have an impact on academic performance. Likewise, pressure or perceived intimidation by friends and family members might also cause a person to perform better than peers in courses related to his or her ethnic background.
2. Second, the reverse hypothesis could also hold true, in that students who identify with the cultural or ethnic group might perform worse in those classes because of factors like antagonism or disagreement with the instructor or boredom. In this case, a student might be put off by the fact that their African-American Studies professor was Russian, or that course readings were all written by persons outside the cultural or ethnic group.

Both hypotheses highlight the importance of group identity and individual identity, as research has repeatedly shown that identity impacts behavior (Tsai, Chentsova-Dutton & Wong, n.d.).

Research Methods

Data was collected in several stages. First, the researchers compiled a list of ethnically specific courses available at a target university. Second, the researchers collected a sample population of students enrolled in these courses. Third, an anonymous survey was sent to the students that have taken any of the ethnically specific courses. Finally, the researchers collected the student-participants' grades from the courses in question.

Stage one entailed compiling the list of courses. The courses of study and classes selected for evaluation in this research was defined by their course titles. This simple method relies on the instructor to define whether or not the course contains ethnically or racially specific content, in order to eliminate any ambiguity or bias on the part of the researchers. Therefore, courses that mention a specific racial or ethnic group and which are comprised entirely of reading material and assignments that focus on issues pertinent to that group will be included in this research such as English literature and Asian History. A total of ten different courses were located, and surveys were sent to all students in these courses. Participants taking any course that does not meet the criteria for being ethnically specific need not be included in the research.

The survey method is appropriate for this research because it allows for the collection of data from all willing participants in each of the ethnic/race-based classes in the target university. Moreover, this method of data collection promotes both validity and ethical correctness because all students surveyed would have voluntarily agreed to the survey, and no student is being singled out or self-selecting for the research.

A disclaimer was offered prior to administering the survey to ensure anonymity, both with regards to the survey results and also to the collection of grades for the course. The survey method will also allow for a focus on capturing complete data question responses, attitudinal behavior, and the ability to extensively investigate volunteer subjects concerning their responses.

The survey questions (Appendix A) were left open-ended to encourage nuanced responses. Even some of the questions that suggested a "yes" or "no" answer received explained responses. These were included in the survey without further interpretation. The open-ended nature of the survey does mean, however, that some answers may need to be interpreted. One method of interpreting open-ended qualitative questions is concept mapping. In concept mapping, answers are placed into the realm of the conceptual, responses categorized into schema (Jackson & Trochim, 2002). For example, responses to a question about race could be grouped into a handful of different groupings, rather than left to stand individually. This can help make the results more comprehensive.

The survey questions (see Appendix A) help to answer the research question, which is whether or not student performance in ethnic courses is related to the student's ethnic self-identification. While it has been hypothesized that students who belong to a particular racial or ethnic group will perform better in classes with certain ethnic content, the alternate hypothesis is that students belonging to that ethnic group will underperform related to their classmate counterparts. Reasons for the differences in performance would, however, theoretically be identical. Sociological and psychological variables such as identity, pressure, intimidation, perception of professor bias, and many other factors could create a complex interplay impacting academic performance.

A total of 560 surveys were sent out to the students enrolled in the ten different courses. Of those, only thirty were returned with all of the questions answered, yielding a small but substantial enough sample…