Date
4-26-2024
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education in Curriculum & Instruction (EdD)
Chair
Sharon Michael-Chadwell
Keywords
Achievement Gap, Education, Black, Cultural Experience
Disciplines
Curriculum and Instruction | Education
Recommended Citation
Barnett, Sonia, "The Academic Achievement Gap and the Cultural Experiences of Black College Students: A Phenomenological Study" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5440.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5440
Abstract
The United States education system has faced an academic achievement gap that outlines a disparity in students’ academic performance. This phenomenological study will discover the relationships between the educational achievement gap and the culturally related experiences of Black adult college students in Northern Virginia. A theoretical framework that the researcher observed is transcendental phenomenology (TPh). which was developed mainly by Husserl as a philosophical approach to qualitative research methodology that seeks to understand human experience by looking at how Black college students perceive their culturally related experiences. The researcher collected data using the purposive sampling strategy through focus groups, interviews, and surveys. Data was analyzed to explain how students’ perceptions of their experiences and subsequent decisions relate to the academic achievement gap. The overall findings of this study are that Black students’ perceptions of their lived experiences regarding culture have a close relationship to their college performance and, subsequently, a direct and substantial relationship to the academic achievement gap.
