Abstract:

Globalization (Rogers-Sirin & Sirin, 2009) and changing demographics (United States Census Bureau, 2017) in the United States have resulted in a need for multicultural education to prepare students for an increasingly diverse society. Although the important role of expectancy-value theory has been well documented a wide range of disciplines (e.g., Andersen & Ward, 2014; Burak, 2014), its relationship to multicultural education is unknown. (Valez & Olivencia, 2017). The purpose of our study was to examine the underlying structure of expectancy-value theory in multicultural education and identify patterns of responses to the value and struggle of multiculturalism among college students.

Participants were 121 college students who completed a demographic survey and an adapted Expectancy-Value Questionnaire (EVQ) (Trautwein et al., 2012). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) yielded two factors: F1 (value) and F2 (struggle). The marker item for value factor was "It is important to me personally to be proficient in cross-cultural communications," and for cost factor was "I am never good at communicating with people from different cultures." Factor scores were used in the subsequent latent profile analysis which yielded an optimal solution with four latent profiles (LP). LP1 (N=70), labeled as AV-AS (average value-average struggle), had close to average scores on both factors and was relatively neutral about human diversity and average on cross-cultural communications. LP2 (N=14), labeled as LV-HS (low value-high struggle), had scores more than 1.5 standard deviations below the mean of F1, and scores slightly above average on F2. This group did not attach much value to human diversity and reported struggles in cross-cultural communications. LP3 (N=25), labeled as HV-LS (high value-low struggle), had very high scores on F1, and low scores on F2. This group not only highly valued human diversity, but also reported high efficacy beliefs in dealing with it. The smallest group, LP4 (N=12), labeled as HV-HS (high value-high struggle), had high scores on both factors. The HV-HS group highly valued human diversity, yet reported low confidence associated with it.

AV-AS group included the largest proportions of males (22.9%), mostly Caucasian (64%) and native English speakers (95%). LV-HS group had the highest age average and included were mostly from big-size hometowns with over 50,000 people. HV-LS had the largest proportion of Black non-Hispanic (40.0%) and females (88.0%), and all members were native English speakers (100%). In contrast, HV-HS group included the largest proportion of Caucasians (75.0%), but also included all the participants who were Biracial/Multiracial (8.3%) or International (8.3%), and half of this group was from midsize hometowns.

Among the four distinct groups of college students with varied views toward the value and struggle of multicultural education, it is interesting to see the difference in demographic makeup relates to the four different views. Further, it's alarming that less than 31% the participants in the study valued multiculturalism, and that less than 7% reported positive outlook in cross-cultural communications. As value and efficacy beliefs play such a critical role in the choice making process (Eccles et al., 1983) and motivation, it merits more studies in the future to further investigate the patterns of responses to the value and struggle in multicultural education (Beach et al., 2003; Dunbar, 1980).

Keywords:

Expectancy-value theory, multiculturalism, latent profile analysis, multicultural education.