Testing a longitudinal social cognitive model of intended persistence with engineering students across gender and race/ethnicity

• Tested temporal relations in an integrative social cognitive model with engineering students.
• A bidirectional model fit the data well in a longitudinal study.
• Findings suggested gender and racial–ethnic model invariance.
• A reciprocal relation among academic satisfaction and intended persistence emerged.

We examined the temporal relations within Lent et al.'s (2013) integrative SCCT model of academic satisfaction and intended persistence in a sample of 551 engineering undergraduates from a Hispanic serving institution. They completed measures of instrumentality, support, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, academic satisfaction, and intended persistence at two time points approximately 12 months apart. Using longitudinal cross-panel design, the findings supported a model where: (a) instrumentality predicted self-efficacy, (b) self-efficacy was a temporal precursor for both interests and academic satisfaction, (c) support was a temporal precursor for outcome expectations, while also predicting academic satisfaction, (d) academic satisfaction and intended persistence had a reciprocal relation with one another, and (e) relations in the model did not differ by gender or race/ethnicity. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.