The Validation of the North American
Indigenous College Students Inventory
(NAICSI)
Craig Marroquín
The North American Indigenous College Students Inventory (NAICSI)
was designed to mea­sure cultural integrity (preservation of cultural tradition and cultural identity) through six support ­factors (­family, tribe,
peers, staff, faculty, and institution) and the effects of ­these support
­factors on cultural reciprocity, cultural resiliency, GPA, and per­sis­tence
for Native American college students through the lens of transculturation. Transculturation is a socialization pro­cess that assesses how Native
American college students maintain their cultural integrity through dif­
fer­ent dimensions of support. Statistical analyses revealed the NAICSI
yielded high levels of internal consistency, content validity, and construct
validity. Additionally, the confirmatory ­factor analyses supported the hypothesized ­factor structure. The NAICSI was validated on 1,066 Native
American college students from 75 institutions and representing more
than 200 tribes. The NAICSI could be used as a valid metric for evaluating on-­campus support f­ actors for Native American college students.
Introduction
In 1665, Harvard University student Caleb Cheeshateaumuck (Wampanoag Tribe) was the first Native American college graduate in colonial
America. One year after his graduation he died due to complications of
“tuberculosis” (Carney, 1999). Unfortunately, his untimely demise has
been the foreshadowing state of Native Americans in higher education.
Since Caleb first arrived on Harvard University’s campus nearly 360
years ago, Native Americans have been a visible, when convenient, discarded population within the higher education academe. Tierney (1993)
described the research on the Native American college experience as
[r]elegated to footnotes in books about other minorities in the United
States. Furthermore, what little information exists pertains to statistical
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summaries about when Indian students go to college, their rates of participation, leave-­take, and the like. In many respects, Native Americans
are invisible in academe, researchers neither study them nor do institutions devise specific strategies to encourage Indian students to attend,
to participate and to graduate. (p. 309)
Tierney’s comment on the status of Native Americans in 1993 was reflective of the state of Native Americans in higher education in 1665 and
is the current state of Native American postsecondary education in
2020. In other words, when it comes to empirical higher education research Native Americans are statistically underpowered, ignored, and
relegated to footnotes or an asterisk.
Since the 1960s, when enrollment for Native college students was approximately 2,000 nationwide (Wright, 1991), Native Americans have
steadily increased their presence on college campuses. As of 2016–­2017,
Native Americans comprised .8% (178,968) of the entire 2016–­2017 undergraduate college-­going population (U.S. Department of Education,
National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018a). In contrast, individuals who identified as American Indian and Alaska Native alone or
in combination comprised 1.7% of the entire 2010 U.S. population (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2012), which has translated to the underrepresentation of
Natives in higher education. Once on campus, the average rate of completion within four years for all students was approximately 40%, but for
Native Americans, the average rate of completion was 24%, which is the
second lowest, behind that of African-­Americans, for any demographic
group who identified their racial status (McFarland et al., 2017).
Furthermore, from 2010–­2011 to 2016–­2017, Native Americans had
the second highest percentage decrease in enrollment of 27% (65,580),
while Native/Pacific Islanders had the most substantial percentage decrease of 34% (34,579) (U.S. Department of Education, NCES, 2019c).
From 2010 to 2011 to 2016–­2017 the overall associate degree conferment
rate for all students increased by 3% (996,412), but Native Americans
had the third most significant decrease of 8% (744) followed by that of
White students at 9% (50,669) with Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders
having had the largest percentage decrease at 25% (1,090) (U.S. Department of Education, NCES, 2019a). Meanwhile, Hispanic/Latinx
students had the biggest percentage increase at 62% (77,151), followed
by Asian students at 28% (11,110) (U.S. Department of Education,
NCES, 2019a). Comparable to the associate degrees conferred trends,
the overall rate of bachelor’s degrees conferred increased by 12%
(203,244), but Native American students experienced the only decline
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among all racial/ethnic categories at 17% (1,938) (U.S. Department of
Education, NCES, 2019b). The underrepresentation of Native Americans in higher education, high attrition, and low enrollment and degree
completion are all concerning issues for higher education institutions
in the United States.
Unfortunately, most non-­Native researchers predicated their scholarship on Native students’ persistence on culturally deficient theories that
emphasized that Native students cannot succeed in college because of
their cultural integrity (i.e., maintenance of cultural traditions and cultural identity) (Huffman, 2010), which may impede their integration on
postsecondary campuses. In other words, according to the cultural deficit theories of Tinto (1993) and Astin (1985) (e.g., Student Persistence,
Student Involvement), Natives must assimilate to mainstream culture
to be academically successful by Westernized academic standards.
These Westernized academic standards have been embedded in numerous student development theories and have been utilized to understand
the Native American college experience. However, the student development theories and the instruments and surveys based on these theories
that assessed college students’ engagement and experiences have not
always captured elements that are specific to underrepresented students. These theories were developed primarily by White male researchers and validated mostly on White, middle-class, male students (Pascarella
& Terenzini, 1983; Perry, 1968). Therefore, I assert that many of these
theories and instruments lack cultural validity in assessing the unique
college-­going experiences of Native American students, which invites
new educational research perspectives on the issue.
To support the development of new theories and instruments, researchers need data. One problem is that Native American college students are under-­researched; therefore, there is no specific information
on their needs. As a result, Native American college students are underserved, which leaves this population of students in a vulnerable position once they arrive on a university campus. It seems Native students
did not reach a critical mass to deserve attention from the institutions
that only assume they can support Native students without providing
additional culture-­specific, on-­campus support services (e.g., Native
American student center, Native American advisor, specific cultural
activities). Therefore, institutions anticipate that these students should
be academically successful as part of the mainstream, which leaves
them grappling with how to accommodate their cultural integrity (i.e.,
maintenance of cultural traditions and cultural identity) within the
higher education culture.
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The purpose of this article is to describe the validation of an instrument designed to measure the latent construct of cultural integrity and
to identify and quantify the support factors that can either inhibit or
advance the cultural and academic success of Native American college
students. To do so, I moved beyond using formative higher education
student development theories (e.g., Student Persistence, Student Involvement) and expanded the existing transculturation theory to Native
college students. In the proceeding sections, I introduce the problem of
assessing Native American higher education student achievement.
Next, I introduce the transculturation and cultural integrity model and
the support factors. Afterward, I examine the internal consistency, validity properties, the factor structure of the North American Indigenous
College Students Inventory (NAICSI), an instrument designed to measure how cultural integrity (i.e., maintenance of cultural traditions and
cultural identity) effects cultural reciprocity, cultural resiliency, GPA,
and persistence. Finally, I assess the study’s strengths, limitations, and
implications for future practice and research.
Literature Review
Native American Higher Education
Historically, the scholarship of academic success (e.g., grade point average, persistence, completion) and cultural integrity (i.e., maintenance of cultural traditions and cultural identity) for Native American
college students was evaluated qualitatively through storytelling. Storytelling has been and is still an inherent part of the culture, history,
and education of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Tribal
Critical Race Theory has legitimized storytelling as an authentic form
of data collection and holds that “stories are not separate from theory,
they make up theory” (Brayboy, 2005, p. 439). From 2009 to 2019, many
Native American scholars who studied the unique college-­going
process predominantly used qualitative methods and Indigenous
methodologies to understand and conceptualize these experiences
(Drywater-­W hitekiller, 2010; Guillory, 2009; Keene, 2016; Lee, 2009;
Makomenaw, 2014; Shield, 2009; Shotton, Tachine, Nelson, Minthorn,
& Waterman, 2018; Windchief & Joseph, 2015). Additionally, many
non-­Native scholars who studied Native American higher education
lacked the breadth and cultural competency to understand the unique
experiences of Native college students and utilized culturally deficit
models (Huffman, 2008).
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