Developing Major and Career Self-Efficacy Among Marginalized Students: Impacts of a Comprehensive College Transition Program

• In Event: Transition Programs for College Student Success

Abstract

Given the structural barriers that minoritized students face related to college transitions, persistence, and completion, institutions of higher education are utilizing comprehensive college transition programs (CCTPs) to streamline resources and supports. Extant research that draws connections between students’ confidence in their majors, future career pathways, and college persistence point to the importance of major and career self-efficacy for student success. Using two years of longitudinal survey data from a cohort of students, regression analyses show that CCTP participants’ responses reflect the development of significantly greater major and career self-efficacy when compared to a control group of nonparticipants. Implications for how programs can better support the development of major and career self-efficacy for low-income, first-generation, and racially minoritized students are offered.

Authors

• Liane I. Hypolite, California Polytechnic State University

• Joseph Kitchen, University of Southern California

• Adrianna Kezar, University of Southern California