This study examines the effect of cooperative education, controlling for contextual support and
demographic characteristics, on three dimensions of self-efficacy change: work, career, and
academic. It is based on a pathways model that links contextual support and cooperative
education and other forms of student work experience, such as internships, to self-efficacy as a
basis for retention in college and in the engineering major. Of the three forms of self-efficacy,
work self-efficacy was found to be the one efficacy form impacted by cooperative education.
Since self-efficacy is shaped by performance accomplishments, students’ success in their co-op
jobs appears to enhance their confidence in performing a variety of behaviors that are particular
to handling the requirements of the workplace. Change in work self-efficacy from students’
second to third years was also affected by change in students’ confidence in their career
orientation. It was found that the quality of the co-op placement, in particular such dimensions
as the chance to make a difference, to be part of a team, and to apply knowledge from one’s
major enhanced students’ subsequent work self-efficacy. The latter placement dimension
enhanced both career and work self-efficacy. Co-op students were also found to rely less on
support provided by their colleges, friends, parents, and academic advisors. They were also
found to value the instruction of their professors less once returning to class after their first co-op
experience – perhaps a reflection of the latter’s potential lack of current and real-world
understanding. Co-op students’ GPAs were also found to decrease less between the second and
third years than those of non-co-op students. The finding regarding the impact of co-op on work
self-efficacy is claimed here to open up the so-called “black box of co-op” to articulate the
practices and behaviors of cooperative education that shape its contribution to the undergraduate
experience.