Students who belong to an ethnic minority group and are first-generation college students often face obstacles during their studies (Lozano-Partida, 2018). Thus, it is crucial to understand the factors affecting their persistence to improve college integration and reduce dropout rates. Academic satisfaction is a key factor in college persistence (Wilkins-Yel et al., 2019); however, it cannot be measured at the very beginning of the academic year. Therefore, we aimed to examine how two multi-dimensional constructs that can be measured even prior to starting college and contribute to college integration, predict academic satisfaction a year later: (a) the psychosocial readiness for college (PRC- seven scales: academic self-efficacy, educational commitment, social comfort, campus engagement, self-discipline, resilience, and institutional commitment; Phillips-Berenstein et al., 2023) and (b) the higher education orientations (HEO- five scales: profession, knowledge, social, prestige, and external; Willner et al., 2023).
Study 1 (N = 1055 ethnic minority Arab college students in Israel; 76% women; 67% first-generation college students) tested gender and college generational status differences in PRC and HEO. In Study 2, a one-year follow-up (N = 370), we examined whether and how PRC and HEO predict academic satisfaction at the beginning of the second year in college. The results revealed gender and students’ college generational status differences in PRC and HEO. Among first-generation students, the profession orientation and four psychosocial factors (academic self-efficacy, self-discipline, resilience, and institutional commitment) positively predicted academic satisfaction one year later. Among continuing-generation students, higher knowledge and lower external higher education orientations predicted greater academic satisfaction, whereas psychosocial factors did not contribute to the prediction.
The findings contribute to development of culturally sensitive interventions by revealing how diverse psychosocial resources for college affect academic satisfaction of first- and continuing-generation Arab ethnic minority students. These insights can also inform interventions for other ethnic minority groups.

Psychosocial readiness for college, higher education orientations, first-generation college students, ethnic minority students, academic satisfaction

Applied Psychology Around the World | Volume 7, Issue 2