Psychosocial and Self-Regulatory Correlates of Community College Student Success: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Enhancing Community College Student Success: Influence of Psychosocial Factors in Achievement, Persistence, and Degree Pursuit

Abstract

Previous meta-analytic work has shown incremental contributions of psychosocial factors above and beyond more traditional predictors of college student success such as socioeconomic status, standardized tests, and high school GPA (Robbins et al., 2004). However, these findings have been synthesized for only students attending four-year colleges, and there remains a gap in the literature regarding cumulative evidence for two-year or community college students. In the present study, we conducted a meta-analysis to answer the question: What is the overall average relationship between psychosocial factors and community college student success and the impact of moderators to explain variation in effects?

After employing our search for relevant studies using a broad array of terms related to the community college, psychosocial factors, and success outcomes, we uncovered 11,832 unique reports of studies. Upon reviewing titles and abstracts of the reports, we selected 671 studies for full-text retrieval in order to evaluate the inclusion criteria. After double-coded data extraction of study characteristics and effect sizes, the final pool included 702 effect sizes from 178 studies (N = 45,011 total students) spanning 1976 to 2014. We divided types of predictors in categories based on motivational theory and previous synthesis work on psychosocial factors (Richardson, Abrahamson, & Bond, 2009): motivation, self-beliefs, attributions, self-regulation, and anxiety.

Meta-analytic procedures included use of a shifting unit of analysis and weighting procedure when aggregating effect sizes. First, we examined the overall relationship between psychosocial factors and community college student achievement. Under a random effects model, the weighted average r was .15 (95% CI: .13 to .17), which was significantly greater than zero (Z = 16.02, p<.001). In addition, the tests of the distribution of the effect sizes revealed there was sufficient heterogeneity among effect sizes that may be explained by moderator variables (Q = 2284.25, p<.001). Next, we conducted moderator analyses to explain the variability among effect sizes and test hypotheses regarding when and how psychosocial factors can most influence community college student success. The moderators were the type of psychosocial predictor and the percentage of females and minority student composition.

First, there were significant differences among the types of psychosocial factors and their role in achievement (Q = 21.57, p<.001). In particular, motivation (r = .24) and self-regulation (r = .21) predictor variables had the largest average association with community college achievement. This finding suggests the importance of cultivating student motivation such as students’ goals and interests as well as self-regulatory skills and behaviors such as time management and cognitive skills for enhanced achievement in community college. For the demographic moderators, we found no significant moderation of gender (β = -.001, p = .20) or minority status (β = .02, p = .63) for the relationship between psychosocial factors and achievement. Psychosocial factors seem to be equally related with community college achievement regardless of gender and minority status.

With regard to practice, by affirming the positive relationship between psychosocial factors and community college achievement, this study offers administrators and practitioners accumulated and synthesized evidence on psychosocial qualities in students.

Authors

• Carlton Jing Fong, The University of Texas - Austin

• Yughi Kim, The University of Texas - Austin

• Coreen Davis, The University of Texas - Austin

• Youngwon Kim, The University of Texas - Austin

• Lauren Marriott, The University of Texas - Austin

• SooYeon Kim, The University of Texas - Austin