Can I Succeed? Challenges African-American Women Face in Technology-Driven College Classrooms

I elected to be guided by Alexander Astin's (1984, 1985, 1993) theory of student involvement in examining the experiences of first-generation African-American women in the technology-driven classroom because it is one of the most used and time-tested theory in the college student development literature (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Astin's theory has established that students learn by becoming involved with their peers and instructors in educationally purposeful activities. Given the onslaught of technology-driven teaching and learning practices and the literature that supports the importance of learning through interaction, examining their interactivity with the course content, faculty, and peers is an important topic to research.