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Seattle Pacific University Digital Commons @ SPU Education Dissertations Education, School of January 1st, 2017 THE EFFECT OF A COLLEGE-GOING INTERVENTION ON THE COLLEGE- GOING SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS Kaley D. Mitchell Seattle Pacific University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/soe_etd Part of the Counselor Education Commons, and the Secondary Education Commons Recommended Citation Mitchell, Kaley D., "THE EFFECT OF A COLLEGE-GOING INTERVENTION ON THE COLLEGE-GOING SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS" (2017).edu/soe_etd/31 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Education, School of at Digital Commons @ SPU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Education Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ SPU. 1 THE EFFECT OF A COLLEGE-GOING INTERVENTION ON THE COLLEGE- GOING SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS by Kaley D.

Mitchell A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Seattle Pacific University 2017 Approval Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Approval Page. ii Copyright Page. iii List of Figures. iv List of Tables.

2 Benefits of Postsecondary Education. 2 Current Disparities in Higher Education. 10 Contributions of the Study. 24 Definition of Terms.

24 Structure of the Dissertation. 25 CHAPTER II: Review of Literature. 27 History of Self-Efficacy and Career Development. 33 Social Cognitive Career Theory: Self-Efficacy Research.

34 Social Cognitive Career Theory: Adolescence and Diversity. 37 Social Cognitive Career Theory Over Time. 39 History: Self-Efficacy, Career Self-Efficacy, and College-Going Self-Efficacy. 40 Self-Efficacy Intervention Research.

42 Career Self-Efficacy Intervention Research. 43 College-Going Self-Efficacy Intervention Research. 53 Mentorship and Self-Efficacy. 62 Summary of Literature.

63 CHAPTER III: Method. 72 Methods and Procedures. 78 CHAPTER IV: Results. 79 Raw Data Analysis.

90 Follow Up Analysis. 95 Chapter V: Discussion and Recommendations for Research and Practice. 97 Summary of Research. 97 Methods and Procedures.

99 Summary of Findings. 100 Discussion of Results. 102 Implications for Practice. 114 Implications for Future Research.

121 Appendix A- College-Going Self-Efficacy Scale. 141 Appendix B- Approval from Mukilteo School District. 144 Appendix C- Approval to Use Data from Mukilteo School District. 146 Appendix D- Parent Survey.

148 Appendix E- IRB Exemption. 149 Appendix F- Participant Survey Instructions (Posttest). 150 Appendix G- Student Consent to Participate. 151 Appendix H- North Star University of Washington, Bothell Recruitment Brochure.

153 Appendix I- North Star Curriculum Outline. 155 iii List of Figures Figure 1. Social Cognitive Career Model. This figure depicts the social cognitive career model proposed by Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994).

Line graph displaying raw data group means across levels of testing. This figure depicts the difference in mean scores on college-going self-efficacy across pre-test and post-test for the intervention and the control groups. Pre-test and post-test scatterplot. This figure depicts a linear relationship between pre-test and post-test scores on college-going self-efficacy.

87 iv List of Tables Table 1 Quasi-Experimental Non-Equivalent Group Design. 66 Table 2 Percent of Sample and Number of Participants by Race/Ethnicity. 69 Table 3 Percent of Sample and Number of Participants by Gender. 69 Table 4 Percent of Sample and Number of Participants by Free and Reduced Priced Lunch.

70 Table 5 Percent of Sample by Prospective First-Generation College Student Status. 70 Table 6 Number and Percent’s of All Participants Including Intervention and Control Groups by Gender, Race, Low-income Status, and First-generation Status. 81 Table 7 Descriptive Statistics by Group. 82 Table 8 Tests of Normality.

85 Table 9 A Model Summary of Regression Analysis of Pretest and Posttest Scores. 88 Table 10 Test of Homogeneity of Variance: Levene’s Test of Equality Error Variance Based on Mean. 88 Table 11 ANOVA Output of Pretest Scores to Determine Independence of the Covariate and Treatment Effect. 89 Table 12 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects to Determine Homogeneity of Regression Slopes and ANCOVA.

90 Table 13 ANCOVA: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects by Group on Attendance Subscale. 92 Table 14 ANCOVA: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects by Group on Persistence Subscale. 93 Table 15 ANCOVA: Tests of Between-Subjects Effects by Ethnicity of the Intervention Group. 94 v Table 16 Crobach’s Alpha for Total College-Going Self-Efficacy Scale, Attendance Subscale, and Persistence Subscale by Pretest and Posttest.

95 vi Acknowledgments If you know me then you know that my motto in life is to pour my heart into everything that I come across. The path to earning my Ph. has come with a plethora of challenges, tribulations, and hardships as well as many moments of joy and triumph. My heart still beats thanks to those who have provided me academic, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual support along the way.

To my parents Ken and Vicky Mitchell, I am grateful to you both for being the rock in my life, especially your physical and emotional presence during my Ph. To my longtime professor, colleague, mentor and dissertation advisor Dr. Cher Edwards and my two co-chairs Dr. Munyi Shea and Dr.

Mary-Jo Larsen, thank you for your selfless support in pushing me to complete this dissertation in a timely manner. To my colleagues and friends at Seattle Pacific University, specifically Alex Johns, Dana Bailey, Ronak Patel, Nalline Baliram and Kimberly Jensen who in moments of despair picked me up and carried me to the next check point. Finally, to all those who love me including my family and friends and my significant other, thank you for cheering me along the sideline. I would also like to thank Annamarie Jordan and Ayva Thomas, the founders of North Star, as well as Dr.

Janelle Silva, for their vision in designing and implementing college-going interventions that have the potential to be impactful in the lives of underprivileged kids. You inspire students every day and the world is thankful for your passion. I am blessed to have you on my team. I thank God for His continued commitment to helping me develop and grow in academia, my role as a professional school counselor, and as advocate in a world where we must stand against social injustices and where we must stand now! vii Abstract The need for students of all backgrounds to access and persist in postsecondary education informs a need for additional support related to postsecondary attainment for all people.

Social cognitive theory (SCT; Bandura, 1987) and social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) both support the design, implementation, and measurement of college-going interventions that work to enhance self-efficacy, a mediator in college interest, choice, and attendance. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a college-going intervention on the college-going self-efficacy beliefs of a group of diverse middle school students. Specifically, this study examined the effect of an eight-week college-going mentorship program rooted in Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy on college-going self-efficacy. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent group design was employed in this study.

Participants were seventh-grade students from a large urban school district in the Pacific Northwest. The control group was students who participated in the college-going intervention. The intervention group consisted of a comparable group of students who did not participate in the intervention. The dependent variable was college-going self- efficacy measured on the College-Going Self-Efficacy Scale (Gibbons, 2005) at pretest and posttest.

Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed to respond to the research question. Inferential statistics were derived from a one-way ANCOVA after data were analyzed to confirm the assumptions of an ANCOVA. The pretest scores on the College- Going Self-Efficacy scale were treated as the covariate. Tests of statistical significance were analyzed at the.

A one-way ANCOVA revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and the control group on college-going self-efficacy following the college-going intervention and after controlling for the covariate. Thus, the obtained data did not support the findings and hypotheses of recent studies that interventions rooted in sources of self-efficacy have significantly affected self-efficacy. 2 CHAPTER I: Introduction Participation in postsecondary education provides monetary and other individual and societal benefits (Mudge & Higgins, 2011; Rose, 2013; Tate et al. As a result, politicians, researchers, and practitioners have attempted to increase access and success to postsecondary education for all people in a global, competitive, and diversifying economy (Mudge & Higgins, 2011; Tate et al.

In 2009, former President Obama initiated the college completion agenda, setting a goal that by 2020 the United States will have more college degrees earned than anywhere else in the world (White House Office of the Press Secretary, 2009). Theoretically supported by social cognitive theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986 and social cognitive career theory (SCCT) (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994), research in college-going self-efficacy (Gibbons, 2005), specifically college-going interventions in middle school that promote college-going self- efficacy, may provide some explanations for promoting student access and persistence in postsecondary education. Benefits of Postsecondary Education The rationale for improving degree completion is largely one of economics. Advancements in technology and the expansion of more jobs that require complex skills has led to greater opportunity for those who earn a Bachelor’s degree or higher and less opportunity for students with only a high school diploma (Autor, 2014; Carnevale, Jayasundera, & Gulish, 2016; Mudge & Higgins, 2011).

Today, nearly two out of three jobs require some form of postsecondary education, which has reduced the demand for relatively low-skilled workers and increased the demand for high-skilled workers (Carnevale et al. An advanced economy in technology requires a literate, 3 scientific, numerate, and technically trained workforce, increasing the value of postsecondary degrees and providing an enormous benefit to individuals seeking employment (Autor, 2014; Kelly & Prescott, 2007; Mudge & Higgins, 2011). A postsecondary degree, defined as a degree from a two- or four-year granting institution, has large economic and occupational payoffs for graduates (Carnevale et al. In general, the more education one achieves the more money one earns (Belfield & Bailey, 2017).

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2015) reported that in 2015 the annual median income of a young person who earned a bachelor’s degree was $50,000, 64% higher than a young person with only a high school diploma who earned a median income of $30,500. This large income gap gives people with bachelor degrees greater earnings across a lifetime, earning over one million dollars more than those with just a high school diploma across the span of a person’s life (Autor, 2014; Boulard, 2004; Carnevale et al. Purcell, Iams, and Shoffner (2015) cited how greater earnings also affect the amount of money earned into retirement, extending the benefits of higher education to life after work. Increasing levels of education has also led to lower levels of unemployment (Boulard, 2004; Tate et al.

According to the U. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), 7.4% of people who earned less than a high school diploma were unemployed in 2016 as opposed to only 2.5% of people who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.9% of 25-64 year olds with only a high school diploma were employed compared to 88.9% of 25-64 year olds who earned a bachelor’s degree (Kena et al. Following the Great Recession of December 2007 to June 2009, the economy added 11.6 million jobs with ninety-nine percent of them going to workers with a college 4 education (Carnevale et al. Jobs barely grew for those who did not hold a postsecondary degree.

Only a small fraction of the 5.6 million jobs lost in the recession for workers with a high school diploma have been recovered by 2016. Thus, a college degree means more accessibility to today’s job market. Overall, a person who earns a bachelor’s degree will more than likely have a stronger monetary safety net than those with only a high school diploma. The benefits of a college diploma for an individual, however, are not limited to increased salary and lower levels of unemployment (Mudge & Higgins, 2011; Rose, 2013).