The purpose of this study is to examine how students of UVA conceptualize its institutional continuity between its past and present, and whether students’ racial identities predict different perceptions of its continuity.
2 measures were administered via the Psych Dept Participant Pool pretest over three semesters: Spring 2023, Fall 2023, and Spring 2024.
Ingroup Identification - UVA student
1 = not at all, 7 = very much
How important is UVa to your own personal identity?
How similar do you feel in attitudes and opinions to other UVa students?
How strongly do you identify as a UVa student?
Perceptions of UVa Historical Continuity
1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree
3 subscales:
Cultural continuity
The university’s founding values and worldview have endured over time.
The University of Virginia will always be characterized by specific traditions and beliefs
UVa has changed its traditions and customs throughout history
Temporal continuity
There is a causal link between different events in UVa history
Major phases in UVa history are linked to one another
There is no connection between past, present, and future events at the university
Attitudes towards diversity
The value UVa places on diverse people and ideas has been stable over time
The rules about who can enroll as a student are different now than when the university was founded
Institutional messaging about who is welcome at UVa has been continuous throughout its history
show code
#merge prescreen and pretest datastudy2_25S =merge(read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S25 Pretest.csv') %>%select(computID:pretest_IngroupID_3) %>%rename_with(~str_remove(.x, "pretest_")),read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S25 Prescreen.csv'), by ="computID") %>%mutate(semester ='Spring 25')study2_24F =merge(read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/F24 Pretest.csv') %>%rename_with(~str_remove(.x, "pretest_")),read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/F24 Prescreen.csv'), by ="computID") %>%mutate(semester ='Fall 24')study2_24S =merge(read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S24 Pretest.csv'),read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S24 Prescreen.csv'), by ="computID") %>%mutate(semester ='Spring 24')study2_23F =merge(read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/F23 Pretest.csv'),read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/F23 Prescreen.csv'), by ="computID") %>%mutate(semester ='Fall 23')study2_23S =merge(read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S23 Pretest.csv'),read.csv('Prescreen and Pretest Data/S23 Prescreen.csv'), by ="computID") %>%mutate(semester ='Spring 23')study2 =bind_rows(study2_24F, study2_25S, study2_24S, study2_23F, study2_23S) %>%mutate(across(matches(c("UVaHistory_3","UVaHistory_6","UVaHistory_8")), ~8- .), #reverse code items 3, 6, 8 in historical continuity scalerace =as.factor(ifelse(multieth==1, 'multi', #recode raceifelse(black==1, 'black',ifelse(hispanic==1, 'latinx',ifelse(asian==1, 'asian',ifelse(mideast==1, 'mideast',ifelse(white==1, 'white', NA)))))))) %>%mutate(UVAcontinuity =rowMeans(.[c(2:10)], na.rm=TRUE),ingroupUVA =rowMeans(.[c(11:13)], na.rm=TRUE),race_numeric =as.numeric(race)) %>%filter(UVAcontinuity!='NaN'& ingroupUVA!='NaN'&!is.na(race)) %>%mutate(race_2 =as.factor(ifelse(race=='white', 'white', #recode raceifelse(race=='black', 'black', ifelse(race=='latinx'| race=='mideast'| race=='asian', 'neither', NA)))),UVAcontinuity_cultural =rowMeans(select(.,c('UVaHistory_1', 'UVaHistory_2', 'UVaHistory_3')), na.rm=TRUE),UVAcontinuity_temporal =rowMeans(select(.,c('UVaHistory_4', 'UVaHistory_5', 'UVaHistory_6')), na.rm=TRUE),UVAcontinuity_diversity =rowMeans(select(.,c('UVaHistory_7', 'UVaHistory_8', 'UVaHistory_9')), na.rm=TRUE)) %>%select(-computID, -black) write.csv(study2,"study 2/study2_cleaned.csv", row.names =FALSE)
Participants
3173 responses collected across the following semesters:
Spring 23
Fall 23
Spring 24
Fall 24
Spring 25
Race
Note that students who reported being more than one race were categorized as “multiethnic” and only appear in that group, not in any of the other racial groups they reported.
note that multiethnic students are not included in this analyses.
Interpretation of below results: White students perceive UVA as less continuous (or, more discontinuous) across time than Black students and students that are neither Black nor White (p < .001)
show code
#this is the code to produce the plotggerrorplot(data=subset(study2, !is.na(race_2)), x='race_2', y='UVAcontinuity', color='race_2', ylim=c(3.5,4.55), legend='none', xlab='Race', ylab='impressions of intitutional continuity of UVA')#this is the code to run the ANOVAsummary(lm(data=study2, UVAcontinuity~race_2))
Call:
lm(formula = UVAcontinuity ~ race_2, data = study2)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-1.69225 -0.34350 -0.01016 0.32317 2.86330
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 4.11703 0.04215 97.673 < 2e-16 ***
race_2neither 0.01967 0.04595 0.428 0.669
race_2white -0.21797 0.04428 -4.922 9.07e-07 ***
---
Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
Residual standard error: 0.548 on 2693 degrees of freedom
(477 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared: 0.04206, Adjusted R-squared: 0.04135
F-statistic: 59.12 on 2 and 2693 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16
Institutional Continuity Subscales by Race
Interpretation of visualizations below: It looks like the effect described above ^ is driven by White students perceiving discontinuities in UVA’s attitudes about diversity specifically. See the “Purpose and DVs” tab for the items under the “attitudes towards diversity” subscale
Stand in front of contemplative commons- show images of west complex in the past. VS standinng in front of west complex, show images of west complex in the past. Ask about diversity continuity and temporal continuity feelings. feelings about whether UVA has atoned for its wrongdoings
