Community College Workforce Development and Student Self-Efficacy

This study explored the impact of a seven-college consortium called Credentials to Careers (C2C), which was created to foster innovative programs to retrain unemployed and displaced workers for STEM, advanced manufacturing and health-care-related careers, on students’ self-efficacy. Using the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, we measured students’ retrospective, pre-post, self-reported, self-efficacy beliefs to assess change in self-efficacy as a result of participation in the C2C program using t-tests and effect size calculations. We also explored the potential relationships between the five C2C core elements and the self-reported changes in participants’ self-efficacy using bivariate correlations, one-way ANOVA, and effect size calculations. Overall findings showed statistically significant improvements in self-reported self-efficacy across several analyses with moderate to large effect size estimates. Small sample sizes limit the strength of these observations. We also explored the possible relationships between C2C core elements and changes in participants’ self-efficacy and found significant evidence that students who felt supported by some of the C2C core elements experienced greater gains in self-efficacy. These data provide support for the value of the core practices emphasized by the C2C consortium and how they may help to foster students’ self-efficacious learning behaviors. Notably, those programs that appear to serve the most vulnerable populations recorded the largest change in self-efficacy.