Date of Award

Fall 2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Foundations & Leadership

Committee Director

Monica C. Esqueda

Committee Member

Dana D. Burnett

Committee Member

Anthony C. Perez

Abstract

Alarming rates of Black male underachievement in the community college are compelling reasons to explore factors that promote their academic success. Black male community college students have the lowest grade point averages among males across all races and ethnicities, and the highest rates of attrition (Department of Education, 2008; Ross et al., 2012). Sadly, the educational experiences of Black males have been characterized by racial discrimination, negative portrayals, marginalization, and lowered expectations. As academic self-efficacy has been found to promote the academic achievement of collegians, this study investigated the factors which have the greatest influence on the academic self-efficacy beliefs among diverse community college students and Black male’s perceptions of these beliefs. A two-phase, sequential, explanatory mixed methods design was employed, beginning with a quantitative data collection and analysis, followed by a qualitative approach. One hundred and nine participants were sampled in Phase 1 on the investigation, with descriptive statistics revealing little variance between the participants’ academic self-efficacy scores. Overall, Black students were found to have the highest levels of academic self-efficacy among all racial and ethnic groups. In addition, educational aspirations were found to be the strongest predictors of students’ academic self-efficacy. Purposive sampling was used to identify 17 Black male interview participants for Phase 2 of the study, to explore their perceptions of the experiences that have influenced their academic self-efficacy beliefs. The qualitative analysis revealed that institutional and familial support contributed to the formation of academic self-efficacy beliefs. Moreover, encounters with bullying and school violence were found to negatively impact the educational experiences of Black male participants.

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DOI

10.25777/n7qc-r002

ISBN

9780355780116

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