Stress, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Student Involvement As Predictors of Persistence Toward Attainment of a Bachelor's Degree Among African American Students

Background: Disparities in bachelor’s degree attainment between White American and diverse non-White American students, especially African American students, remain a great concern.  Stress, self-efficacy, and involvement play a significant role in student persistence toward a bachelor’s degree attainment.  Bachelor’s degree is critical in achieving career goals and subsequent improved quality of life in modern societies.  The major goal of this study was to expand understanding of the complexity of persistence problems among African American undergraduate students in relation to attaining a bachelor’s degree. The objective of the study was to investigate the degree to which stress, self-efficacy, and involvement influence students’ persistence toward a bachelor’s degree attainment.  The main research questions were: (a) to what degree do stress, academic self-efficacy, and involvement influence students’ persistence toward a bachelor’s degree attainment? (b) were there differences in persistence between social work and non-social work students; and traditional-age and non-traditional-age  students? (c) among stress, academic self-efficacy, and involvement, which one was the most and least influential in predicting persistence?

 Methods: A cross-sectional survey and a convenience sample of 405 undergraduate students were used to collect data.  Following the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) by the respective institution, the participants were contacted, informed consent was sought, and standardized self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data during the spring and summer 2012.  In addition to social demographic data, the Quick Stress Questionnaire (QSQ) (Otani, 1985; Stilger, Etzel, & Lantz, 2001), College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES) (Owen and Froman, 1988), and College Student Involvement, a revised version from College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) (Pace & Kuh, 1998) were used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistical procedures used for data analyses included bivariate multiple regressions, independent samples t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

 Results:  Sixty-seven percent of the participants were female and 89.6% were unmarried. The average age was 25.42 years (SD= 7.4), with a range of 18 to 58 years.  Social work and non-traditional students were more likely to persist in the university compared with non-social work and traditional students.  Students in the College of Public Service appeared to persist better compared to those in the Colleges of Lifelong Learning and Undecided major field of study.  Involvement, stress, and academic self-efficacy significantly predicted students’ persistence.  Among these variables, involvement was the most influential and academic self-efficacy the least in predicting students’ persistence toward an attainment of a bachelor’s degree. 

 Conclusion and Implications:  Overall, the findings indicate that involvement, stress, and academic self-efficacy are important factors in influencing African American students’ persistence.  The implications of these findings are (a) administrators and faculty should involve or engage students as much as possible in the learning process, both inside and outside the classroom, (b) use evidence-based strategies to address stress, and (c) further research regarding the role of self-efficacy in academic success among undergraduate students is needed.