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The Role of Student Beliefs in Dual-Enrollment Courses

Dual-enrollment courses are theorized to promote students' preparedness for college in part by bolstering their beneficial beliefs, such as academic self-efficacy, educational expectations, and sense of college belonging. These beliefs may also shape students' experiences and outcomes in dual-enrollment courses, yet few if any studies have examined this possibility. We study a large dual-enrollment program created by a university in the Southwest to examine these patterns. We find that mathematics self-efficacy and educational expectations predict performance in dual-enrollment courses, even when controlling for students' academic preparedness, while factors such as high school belonging, college belonging, and self-efficacy in other academic domains are unrelated to academic performance. However, we also find that students of color and first-generation students tend to have lower self-efficacy and educational expectations before enrolling in dual-enrollment courses, in addition to having lower levels of academic preparation. These findings suggest that students from historically marginalized populations may benefit from social-psychological as well as academic supports in order to receive maximum benefits from early postsecondary opportunities such as dual-enrollment. Our findings have implications for how states and dual-enrollment programs determine eligibility for dual-enrollment as well as how dual-enrollment programs should be designed and delivered in order to promote equity in college preparedness.

Keywords
dual-enrollment; dual-credit; self-efficacy; educational aspirations; belonging; academic achievement
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/gsth-gg11

EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:

Giani, Matt S., Colton E. Krawietz, and Tiffany A. Whittaker. (). The Role of Student Beliefs in Dual-Enrollment Courses. (EdWorkingPaper: 22-522). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/gsth-gg11

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