Abstract
Brief Literature Review: Latinos make up the largest growing population in the United States, but simultaneously represent the population with the lowest degree attainment (Krogstad, 2014). As Latino youth enter colleges and universities, it has become the responsibility and goal of administrators to understand the struggles and promote the educational success of this population. A known factor influencing educational success and degree attainment is academic self-efficacy (Brady-Amoon & Fuertes, 2011). Thus, understanding how academic self-efficacy is developed and influenced holds a key to understanding the educational experience of Latino students. Statement of Problem: Self-efficacy can be developed and influenced through multiple means, including mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological signals. Racial discrimination represents a form of verbal persuasion that holds the potential to negatively influence a student’s academic self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to determine what types of racial discrimination Latino students experience on the college campus and how these discriminatory interactions influence the student’s feelings of academic self-efficacy, recognizing gender differences. Methodology: The study used a quantitative method to conduct research on currently enrolled undergraduate Latino and Latina students at a Northern California public university. The study utilized an online survey. A total of 404 students participated in the research. Conclusions and Recommendations: The results of this study revealed three findings. First, Latino students are experiencing racial discrimination on the university campus, most often in the forms of microaggressions. Second, experience with perceived racial discrimination does not appear have a direct relationship with academic self-efficacy for male or female students, but a strong inverse relationship was found between the two variables for students identifying as other than male or female. Future research is needed to further understand the disparity in experiences between students with different gender identifications and to ensure that all students have access to an educational environment that bolsters self-efficacy.