The life stories of former community college agriculture reentry students: a narrative inquiry of self-efficacy

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to identify agriculture reentry students and to understand and interpret their life stories in relation to the concept of self-efficacy. In so doing, I was able to determine the role of self-efficacy in their decisions to become community college reentry students. My interviews of my participants were in-depth, private, individual, open-ended, and face-to-face. I was able to identify emerging themes from my participants' stories by using a system of cross-case matrix analysis. I reported my research findings using a narrative inquiry methodology that allowed the individual and collective voices of my participants' life stories to be clearly expressed and heard. During the interpretation of my data, I found a correlation between my participants' level of self-efficacy as it related to their decision to become community college reentry students. In particular, I found the self-efficacy construct of motivation played an important role in guiding them toward their academic achievement. I was able to connect my participants' stories to the literature on self-efficacy and this deepened my understanding of their experience as community college re-entry students. This research will assist community college researchers and practitioners in understanding the role of self-efficacy in the academic achievement of reentry students at public two-year institutions. It also provided me with a basis to make recommendations for further research and improvements to practice.