The relationship of ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational relations, and sense of belonging in the institution to academic success among Asian American undergraduates

This study seeks to contribute to the exploration of the factors affecting today's Asian American college student population by investigating the relationship between ethnicity, gender, acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging in the institution, on the one hand, and these students' academic performance, on the other. Data were collected from 265 Asian American undergraduate students who completed an online survey consisting of queries for demographic information as well as questions from the Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale, the Intergenerational Conflict Inventory, the Sense of Belonging Scale, and the College Self-Efficacy Inventory.;The results of this study revealed that acculturation, intergenerational conflicts, and sense of belonging were significant predictors of academic performance among Asian American college students. Specifically, intergenerational conflicts over education and career were found to be important influences on students' GPA and higher course self-efficacy, while acculturation to European-American culture was found to be a significant predictor of self-efficacy for the subscales of social and roommate self-efficacy. Sense of belonging in the institution also positively influenced all three subscales of self-efficacy. Given the lack of previous empirical research investigating this relationship among Asian American students, these results demand that higher education institutions pay greater attention to strengthening their students' sense of belonging. Regarding gender differences, interestingly female students reported higher GPAs than male students while also reporting higher family conflict surrounding dating and marriage. Although such findings showed mixed results, this study can contribute fruitfully to a limited number of studies that have considered the impact of gender differences among Asian American young people.;Above all, this study demonstrates that there is significant diversity among Asian American college students, even within a limited sample of generally high-achieving students at a selective four-year university. And the components of this diversity are not only ethnicity and gender, but also patterns of acculturation, of intergenerational conflicts, of immigration and generational differences, and of attaining a sense of belonging.