The Effect of Self-Efficacy on First-Generation African American College Students

As students transition into college, some matriculate with more family, social, and academic support structures than others. Students who are the first in their families to attend college may not have the support necessary to help them succeed, influencing a need for more college resources to assist students with becoming academically successful. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine if there were significant differences in perceived self-efficacy between first-generation and non-first-generation African American college students. The independent variable was African American college student status: first-generation African American college students and non-first-generation African American college students. The dependent variables were perceived collective self-efficacy, perceived social self-efficacy, perceived academic self-efficacy, and perceived roommate self-efficacy. The College Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI), which measures collective self-efficacy and the three psychosocial factors: academic self-efficacy, roommate self-efficacy, and social self-efficacy, was used in this study. There was no significant difference in the collective self-efficacy of first-generation African American college students and non-first-generation African American college students as it relates to college self-efficacy. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the subscales of: academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, and roommate self-efficacy. Given that self-efficacy is malleable, the results of this casual comparative study can be used by colleges to evaluate current programs and design new programs that meet the needs for first-generation students to be academically successful