The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2 - 85

Ethnic Minority Student Success at a New Zealand University

tion (McIntyre, Todd, Huijser, & Tehan, 2012;
McKenzie & Schweitzer, 2001). In response to
lower academic attainment levels for Pacific
Peoples (Ministry of Education & Ministry of
Business Innovation and Employment, 2014),
the New Zealand government made their participation in and achievement at university a
priority (Ministry of Education, 2013).

STUDENT HOUSING AND
THE FIRST YEAR AT UNIVERSITY
Tinto (1975, 1997) and others (Krause, 2005;
Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2008;
Thomas, 2002; Zepke, Leach, & Butler, 2010)
have described and developed models that
support student engagement, retention, and
success in the first year of higher education.
These models include social integration as a
key component.
Many studies have shown the benefits of
living on campus or in a residential college.
According to a study conducted by Pascarella
(1985), both formal and informal interactions
with faculty were higher among those living
on campus; that level of interaction was associated with improved persistence and academic

Pacific students represent a minority
group in New Zealand, and, like
minority groups in other countries,
they experience lower levels of
access, achievement, and retention
in higher education institutions .

achievement (Goldstein, 1999; Halawah, 2006;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), yet some ethnic
differences were evident in levels of first-year
student-faculty interaction (Gonyea, Graham,
& Fernandez, n.d.). Diversity was encouraged,
as students' interactions with their peers from
other cultural backgrounds positively affected
learning. Such benefits were likely to increase
when students lived in close proximity to each
other as seen in a residential college situation
(Hu & Kuh, 2003).
Living in a residential college has the benefit
of facilitating greater social interaction for firstyear students in higher education (Long, 2014;
Pike, 2002), and that enhanced interaction supports students' integration into the university.
A large body of international research on the
effects of living in a residential college indicates that first-year students living in residence
halls are more likely to persist (Herndon, 1984;
Lopez Turley & Wodtke, 2010), develop a sense
of personal accomplishment and other social
skills (Chickering & Kuper, 1971; Pascarella,
Terenzini, & Blimling, 1993; Pike, 2002), be
involved in campus programs and participate
in extracurricular activities (Pascarella, 1985;
Pascarella et al., 1993), and achieve better
results (Kanoy & Bruhn, 1996; Lopez Turley
& Wodtke, 2010) than do students in the same
courses but not in residential college accommodation. Other studies have suggested that these
benefits are not a consistent finding or that
differences could be explained by other factors
(Blimling, 1989; Lopez Turley & Wodtke, 2010;
Gonyea et al., n.d.).
At the University of Otago, a report on the
success of Māori students found that first-year
residential college accommodation had immediate and long-term benefits even when
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2

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