DOCUMENT RESUME ED 402 847 HE 029 764 AUTHOR Pascarella, Ernest T.; And Others The "Chilly Climate" for Women and Cognitive Outcomes TITLE During the First Year of College. ASHE Annual Meeting Paper; Illinois Univ., Chicago. Coll. of Education.; INSTITUTION National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, University Park, PA. SPONS AGENCY Department of Education, Washington, DC. .21 Jan 96 PUB DATE RI17G10037 CONTRACT 47p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the NOTE Association for the Study of Higher Education (21st, November 3, 1996). Memphis, TN, October 31 Speeches/Conference Papers (150) Reports PUB TYPE Research /Technical (143) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. Cognitive Tests; *College Freshmen; Educational DESCRIPTORS Attainment; *Educational Environment; *Females; Higher Education; *Intellectual Development; Longitudinal Studies; Organizational Climate; Outcomes of Education; Student Alienation; Student Characteristics; *Student College Relationship; Student Development; Two Year Colleges *ASHE Annual Meeting; Integrated Postsecondary IDENTIFIERS Education Data System; National Center for Educational Statistics; *National Study of Student Learning ABSTRACT This study investigated the impact of a "chilly campus climate" on women's first-year cognitive outcomes. The sample population of 1,636 women was selected from incoming first-year students at 18 four-year and five two-year colleges and universities located in 16 different states which had participated in the longitudinal National Study of Student Learning. Institutions were selected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to approximate the race/sex balance of the national undergraduate population. A "Chilly Climate for Women Scale" was developed from eight items pertaining to perceived gender discrimination on the follow-up study. While the study found modest correlation between chilly campus climate and negative impact on intellectual growth, it did show that the magnitude of the impact was greater for women at two-year colleges than for those at four-year institutions. Four tables provide correlation scales, variable definitions, and regression analyses for women at two-year and at four-year colleges. (Contains 41 references.) (CH) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** THE 'CHILLY CLIMATE FOR WOMEN AND COGNITIVE OUTCOMES DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE* Ernest T. Pascarella Elizabeth J. Whitt Marcia I. Edison Amaury Nora Linda Serra Hagedom University of Illinois at Chicago Patricia M. Yeager Patrick T. l'erenzirii The Pennsylvania State University January 21,1996 Mailing address: Ernest T. Pascarella College of Education (m/c 147) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION University of Illinois Office of Educational Research and improvement "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY 1040 W. Harrison St. CENTER (ERIC) [Vitus document has been reprOduced as Chicago, IL 60607-7133 received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to ASHE improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in INS docu- went do not necessarily represent official TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OERt position or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." This investigation was conducted as part of the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. NSSL is supported by Grant No. R117G10037 from the US Department of Education to the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. 2 EST COPY AVA LABILE 11) ASSOCIATION Texas A&M University FOR THE ASFI* Department of Educational Administration STUDY OF College Station, TX 77843 HIGHER EDUCATION (409) 845-0393 This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education held in Memphis, Tennessee, October 31 - November 3, 1996. This paper was reviewed by ASHE and was judged to be of high quality and of interest to others concerned with higher education. It has therefore been selected to be included in the ERIC collection of ASHE conference papers. Abstract This study investigated the impact of the *chilly campus climate° for women (Hall & Sandler, 1982; Hall & Sandler, 1984; Sandler, 1986) on women's first-year cognitive outcomes in 23 two- and four-year colleges. Negative relationships were found between perceived chilly climates and women's cognitive growth, although the negative effects were more pronounced for women attending two-year colleges than for their counterparts at four-year institutions. 4 2 Introduction For nearly a decade, women have constituted over half of the undergraduate student population in institutions of higher education in the United States (c.f., Shavlik, Touchton, & Pearson, 1989). Higher education researchers have responded to the presence of increasing numbers of women students by investigating the extent to which women's experiences in college support and/or inhibit their personal and intellectual development. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the research on women's experiences in college, then describes a study of the impact of some of those experiences on women students' learning. Research on College Outcomes for Women Research has been conducted on gender differences and gender-related effects of such varied aspects of college as development of self-esteem and educational and vocational aspirations (Arnold, in press; Arnold & Denny, 1985; Holland & Eisenhart, 1990), development of identity (Josselson, 1987; Kaschak, 1992), development of intellectual reasoning (Baxter Magolda, 1988, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986), course- and major-related learning and participation (Ethington & Wolfle, 1988; Hall & Sandler, 1982: Maher & Tetreault, 1994), leadership development (Astin & Leland, 1991; Whitt, 1994), and general effects of college (Astin, 1993; Astin, 1977). Results of these studies suggest that certain experiences of women in college can have a negative effect on their personal and intellectual development. Summaries of all this work are not possible here, but we offer one example: the impact on female self-esteem of a variety of socio-cultural aspects of American life (cf., American Association of University Women (AAUW), 1992; Mann, 1994; Pipher, 1994). For example, a report of a number of longitudinal studies of girls from childhood through adolescence showed °significant declines in [individuals'] self-esteem and self- confidence.° (AAUW, 1992, p. 12). In addition, adolescent girls who have high academic ability have higher expectations for failure and lower self-confidence in new academic settings than boys of similar abilities (AAUW, 1992). Research also indicates that female self-esteem and self-confidence do not improve once women enter college. Although women are likely to come to college with higher grades than men, they have lower expectations for their performance in college (Hafner, 1989). And women's self-esteem apparently continues to decline during their time in college. For example, a longitudinal study of high school valedictorians and salutatorians found that women experienced an acute decline in their estimates of their own intelligence in comparison with that of their peers, despite continued high levels of academic performance (Arnold, in press; Arnold & Denny, 1985). Alexander Astin (1993) echoed this finding in his most recent book, based on his national studies of college students: Women enter college already differing considerably from men in self-rated emotional and psychological health, standardized test scores, GPAs, political attitudes, personality characteristics, and career plans, and most of these differences widen during the undergraduate years A similar conclusion was . . . reached nearly twenty years ago in Four Critical Years. (p. 405-406) 6 4 "Chilly' Campus Climates for Women The results of these and other studies on college environments for women (Boyer, 1987; Forrest, Hotel ling, & Kuk, 1984; Hall & Sandler, 1984; Holland & Eisenhart, 1990; Sandler, 1986; Smith, 1990; Smith, Wolf, & Morrison, 1995; Whitt, 1992; Yeager, 1995; Yeager, Terenzini, Pascarella, & Nora, 1995) suggest that the climates of a large number of coeducational postsecondary institutions are not particularly conducive to, or supportive of, women students' learning. In 1982, the Association of American Colleges (AAC) Project on the Status and Education of Women published a report entitled, "The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women?' (Hall & Sandler, 1982). In this report, the authors suggested that the climate in coeducational college classrooms was inhospitable for women students as a result of a variety of overt and covert behaviors of faculty and students, including faculty calling on men more than women, faculty and students making stereotypical comments about women's intellectual abilities, and faculty taking men's contributions more seriously than women's. Ernest Boyer (1987) described this chilly classroom climate in his study of undergraduate education: We were especially struck by the subtle, yet significant, differences in the way men In many classrooms, women are and women participated in class . . . Not only do men overshadowed. Even the brightest women often remain silent . . . 150). talk more, but what they say often carries more weight (p. 7 5 Hall and Sandler (1984) also identified chilly out-of-class climates for women. These climates are characterized by "micro-inequities' (Hall & Sandler, 1984, p. 4), everyday behaviors that discount or ignore someone on the basis of sex (e.g., sexist humor), as well as institutional policies and practices that discriminate against women, such as inequity in hiring, promotion, and salary decisions (c.f., Chamberlain, 1988; Hensel, 1991), male-dominated academic cultures and traditions (Moore, 1987), and male-dominated student cultures that value men for academic and athletic achievements and women for their attractiveness to men (Holland & Eisenhart, 1990). The chilly in-class and out-of-class climates encountered by college women reinforce gender stereotypes and demonstrate that women "are outsiders or marginals" in academe (Moore, 1987, p. 30). Astin (1993) posited the effects of this on women students: Even though men and women are presumably exposed to a common . curriculum . . and to other common environmental experiences during the undergraduate years, it would seem that their educational programs preserve and strengthen, rather than reduce or weaken, stereotypical differences between men and women in behavior, personality, aspirations, and achievement. (p. 406) Research Linking the Chilly Climate to College Outcomes Although the work of Astin, Hall and Sandler, and other researchers cited here suggests that a chilly campus climate exists, it is not clear just exactly what implications such a climate has for the personal and intellectual development of women. Hall and Sandler (1982, 1984) hypothesized that the "chilly climate" reduces the self-confidence 8 6 of women and, as a consequence, diminishes their academic and professional aspirations during and after college. Others have hypothesized that elements of the "chilly climate" have impacts beyond women's aspirations, and, in fact, function to inhibit intellectual and personal devlopment druing college (cf., Holland & Eisenhart, 1990; Kuh, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 1991; Whitt, 1992). At the present time, however, there is little or no evidence to support either of these hypotheses. In .a multi-institution study of changes in educational aspirations during the Yeager et al (1995) found that a measure of the perceived chilly first two years of college , campus climate for women had a positive net association with increases in educational that is, women students who perceived a chilly campus climate had aspirations significantly hiaher, educational aspirations than their counterparts who did not perceive a chilly climate. The study did find, however, that women who perceived a chilly climate were more likely to have higher scores on academic and social integration measures than their peers who did not, and that African American women were more likely to perceive a chilly climate than Caucasian women. Differences between students who perceived a chilly climate and those who did not might account for the counter-intuitive findings of this study. We know of no research, however, on the impact of the chilly climate on women's intellectual development. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to test the hypothesis that the chilly climate has a negative effect on the cognitive development of women. Research methods used to test the hypothesis are described in the next section; descriptions and discussions of the results of the study follow. 9 7 Research Methods Samples Institutional Sample The sample was selected from incoming first-year students at 18 four-year and five two-year colleges and universities located in sixteen different states. These 23 institutions participated in the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL), a longitudinal investigation of the factors that influence learning and cognitive development in college, sponsored by the federally-funded National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (NCTLA). Institutions were selected from the National Center on Education Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data base to represent differences in colleges and universities nationwide on a variety of characteristics, including institutional type and form of control (e.g., private and public research universities, private liberal arts colleges, public and private comprehensive universities, two-year colleges, historically black colleges), size, location, proportions of commuter and residential students, and the racial/ethnic distribution of the undergraduate student body. The aggregate student population of the 23 schools approximated the race/ethnicity and sex (male-female) balance of the national population of undergraduates. Student Sample Each of the 23 institutions was given a target student sample size relative to the size of the first-year class at each institution. The overall target sample was 5,000 first- 1 0 8