An Understanding of Factors Affecting Latinx Academic Performance in STEM Education at California Community Colleges
Latinx students represent the largest ethnic group at California Community Colleges. California Community Colleges serve as the main entry into higher education for the majority of Latinx students, including those students pursing an undergraduate degree in STEM education (The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, 2023). Although there is current research on their experiences in STEM education, much of the research focuses on four-year universities (Snyder et al., 2017). These studies highlight disproportionate academic outcomes among Latinx students’ in historically challenging majors and the importance of developing healthy self-efficacy (The Pew Research Center, 2025). By concentrating on Latinx community college students in STEM, my study will add to the current literature by exploring strategies that help students integrate and thrive in STEM education. It is undeniable that success in STEM education can help Latinx students obtain high-paying positions in the workforce, and, in turn, achieve economic upward mobility despite often coming from poverty (Ackert et al., 2021). By examining obstacles in STEM and broader educational challenges, I hypothesized that the specific factors reviewed in this dissertation will influence Latinx students’ confidence in their academic abilities. This study examined the extent to which relationships between social support, student engagement, faculty representation, and familial expectations and responsibilities are favorable to perceived self-efficacy among Latinx students in STEM education. This is tremendously important because positive self-efficacy has historically been linked to academic achievement and student success (Owens & Ramsay-Jordan, 2021). Thus, I conducted a quantitative study with questionnaires and a 5-point Likert scale with response options to investigate aspects of student self-efficacy. The data I utilized for my research consisted of students from a Hispanic Serving Institution in Las Abejas, California. These students were over the age of 17, pursued a STEM degree at this California Community College, and had completed at least 12 units of coursework in STEM education. I would like to point out that all college classes and majors categorized as STEM in this study have been recognized as such by the National Science Foundation. My literature review directly aligns with the independent and dependent variables utilized in this dissertation. It describes the experiences of Latinx students at institutions of education, stresses the importance of Latinx faculty representation in higher education, and highlights the influence of familial expectations and responsibilities on their academic journeys, particularly when pursing STEM majors. For that reason, Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory was utilized to provided context to the dissertation since this theory has historically had a great influence on the study of higher education. The study results demonstrated that the students’ involvement, family responsibility, and expectations emerged as strong predictors of perceived academic self-efficacy. It was evident that notions of confidence in academic achievement were higher among more engaged students, reinforcing the importance of students’ active participation and involvement in academic activities. Likewise, familial responsibilities are shared responsibilities that positively affected self-efficacy, which implies that family structures and culture could be a source of motivation for Latinx students in STEM fields. In contrast, the support from family and friends was not highly related to perceived academic self-efficacy, suggesting household networks have a weak correlation/effect on the students’ confidence in this aspect. Other variables such as gender and age were also statistically insignificant, indicating that the students’ perceived academic self-efficacy in this study was less a product of these individual characteristics and more influenced by their behavioral and cultural characteristics. Further analyses were conducted to examine whether these relationships differed between male and female students. Among male participants, both student engagement and familial expectations and responsibilities were meaningful predictors of academic self-efficacy. On the other hand, among female students, only student engagement significantly contributed to their sense of academic self-efficacy. Familial expectations and social support did not show a notable influence.
California Community Colleges, First-generation Latinas, Latinos, Latinx, STEM Education, Two-year colleges, Education, Higher Education
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