Intent to Persist in College Freshmen: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Mentorship

We surveyed 237 first-time college students to examine the extent to which social-cognitive factors—self-efficacy, perceptions of mentorship, high school GPA, ACT scores, first-semester college GPA, and demographic characteristics—influence freshmen’s intent to persist. Standard multiple regression and MANOVA were conducted to determine the influence of the selected characteristics on intended persistence. The findings show that college self-efficacy and perceptions of mentorship were the strongest predictors for intentions to persist past the first college semester, whereas ACT, GPA and socioeconomic status did not predict intent to persist. Implications for freshmen retention at 4-year institutions and directions for future research are discussed.