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Empowering Student Self-Efficacy to Drive Achievement
By Dr. Matt Strader, Director of Academic Design, McGraw Hill
Self-efficacy — the belief in one’s ability to succeed on a task — is a pivotal factor in student achievement. This concept, rooted in Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, emphasizes that students’ beliefs about their capabilities can significantly influence their academic outcomes and behaviors.
What is Self-Efficacy in Education?
Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in their ability to successfully perform and achieve their desired result on specific tasks or goals. Self-efficacy is specifically task-oriented and doesn’t refer to general beliefs.
Self-efficacy for learning includes not only achieving the results on a learning task, such as a test or an assignment but also the students’ belief in their ability to use their skills and knowledge to achieve the desired result. In other words, it’s not merely about possessing skills but about the confidence to apply them effectively and achieving the result.
Self-efficacy has been shown to be predictive of achievement. If we believe we can, we’re likely to. Students with high self-efficacy are more likely to embrace challenging tasks, persist through difficulties, and recover from setbacks. Conversely, those with low self-efficacy may avoid challenges and give up easily when faced with obstacles.
In a recent webinar with Doug Fisher, we explored how educators can foster self-efficacy in students. Here’s a quote from Doug on the nature of self-efficacy:
“As teachers, when we attend to self-efficacy, students start to say, ‘Oh! That worked — when I put forth that effort, I got that outcome, and my teacher recognized it. I’m going to try that again.’ It’s a belief system, fed by evidence that we’re improving because of our efforts.”
The Link Between Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation
Self-efficacy is a prerequisite for self-regulation. Students with high self-efficacy are more likely to engage in self-regulated learning behaviors such as setting goals, monitoring their progress, and reflecting on outcomes — and smaller things, like charging their devices or coming to school with supplies. When students trust in their ability to manage tasks, they take ownership of their learning, which further reinforces both motivation and academic achievement. As students build self-efficacy, their capacity for self-regulation naturally increases.
Self-efficacy enables effort, persistence, goal-setting, and self-regulation.
Self-Efficacy and Academic Risk-Taking
One of the most powerful outcomes of strong self-efficacy is a student’s willingness to take productive academic risks. When students believe in their abilities, they’re more inclined to step outside their comfort zones — tackling difficult problems, participating in discussions, or attempting new learning strategies. This risk-taking is crucial for growth and innovation in the classroom. Teachers who support self-efficacy foster a culture where students view mistakes not as failures but as essential parts of the learning process.
Doug, who has been conducting research in academic risk-taking, puts it this way:
“Do you generally believe that when you put forth effort good things happen? If so, you are way more likely to engage in academic risk-taking, which is highly associated with learning. If you don’t have high levels of efficacy, you probably don’t want to put yourself out there, because you don’t believe that anything that you do is going to make a bit of difference at all.”
Five Strategies to Build Self-Efficacy in Students
Here are a few actions educators can take to help students build self-efficacy:
Provide Mastery Experiences. Success builds confidence, and students can learn just as much from success as from failure. Design tasks that are achievable yet challenging, allowing students to experience success through effort. This reinforces their belief in their abilities and encourages them to tackle more complex tasks over time.
Provide Vicarious Experiences. In other words, model the tasks students are asked to do. Students can also often look to peers for cues. Create opportunities for students to collaborate and use student work to demonstrate thinking. Seeing someone similar succeed can bolster a student’s belief that they too can achieve.
Utilize Verbal Persuasion. Be sure to offer students positive feedback and encouragement. Constructive feedback that emphasizes effort and improvement fosters a growth mindset. Encouraging words can motivate students to continue striving, even when tasks are difficult.
Consider Affective States. Affective states simply refer to how students feel. When people feel joyous, happy, comfortable, and safe, they’re much more likely to have higher self-efficacy than if they feel anxious, afraid, or scared. This of course ties back to risk-taking. An environment that encourages risk-taking without fear of ridicule promotes self-efficacy. When students feel safe expressing ideas and making mistakes, they’re more likely to engage deeply with the material.
Create Imaginative Experiences. The idea here is that we can support students in building mental models to imagine themselves being successful. This idea is not fully researched, and experts have differing opinions on its relevance or relation to efficacy. But I think it’s worth mentioning. When students can use mental models to imagine their success or clearly “see” what success looks like, they are more likely to believe in their ability to succeed.
The Role of Clarity in Instruction
Doug puts the importance of clarity this way:
“Clarity in the classroom is when students know what they’re learning, why it matters, and how they’ll know when they’ve learned it.”
Clarity helps students form accurate expectations about their performance, reinforcing their belief that they can succeed with effort and persistence. When educators communicate goals clearly and support students in reaching them, it directly contributes to a culture of confidence and achievement.
Outcomes of Self-Efficacy in Students
When we prioritize fostering self-efficacy, here are some traits we can expect to see our students exhibit:
- Task Selection: Students with strong self-efficacy tend to choose tasks that challenge them, viewing difficulties as opportunities to grow.
- Effort and Persistence: High self-efficacy leads to greater effort and resilience. Students are more likely to persevere through challenges and maintain motivation.
- Response to Failure: Those with robust self-efficacy interpret failures as learning experiences rather than reflections of their abilities, leading to constructive responses and continued effort.
In my conversations with teachers and administrators over the past few years, we talk a great deal — particularly in a post-COVID world — about levels of effort. I hear a lot of concerns about apathy among students. We talk about whether or not students are achieving, but we’re not talking about how self-efficacy can be at the center of this. We’re not evaluating our students and how efficacious they are. Instead, we’re trying to manage all the symptoms when we could be going to the root of the problem.
For a deeper exploration of these concepts, consider watching my full conversation with Doug Fisher: Empowering Student Self-Efficacy to Drive Achievement.
Matt Strader, Ed.D. is Director of Academic Design at McGraw Hill. He has served as a teacher, building administrator, and district leader for schools in Kansas City and New York City. In addition to his extensive work in academics and curriculum, Matt has coached teachers internationally and is a thought leader on effective motivational processes in digital instruction that support student achievement. Matt holds a Doctor of Education in curriculum and instruction from Texas A&M University and his research interests center of self-efficacy in digital learning.
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