Chapter 13: Asking the Right Question: How Confident Are You That You Could Successfully Perform These Tasks?

Self-efficacy refers to “the conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes” (Bandura, 1977, p. 79). Since its initial conception, researchers and practitioners in education have been paying close attention to the utility of self-efficacy in explaining and predicting students’ academic functioning in school. Their efforts have been justified. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that students with a strong sense of efficacy are motivated to engage in challenging tasks (Bandura & Schunk, 1981), invest greater effort in assigned tasks (Salomon 1984; Schunk, 1983), set higher goals (Schunk & Swartz, 1993), persist longer in the face of occasional setbacks (Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1984; Schunk, 1982), express lower levels of anxiety (Bandura, Pastorelli, Barbaranelli, & Caprara, 1999; Pajares, Miller, & Johnson, 1999), use more effective learning strategies (Zimmerman, Bandura, & Martinez-Pons, 1992; Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 1999), and achieve at higher levels (Pajares et al., 1999; Pietsch, Walker, & Chapman, 2003) compared to those with low self-efficacy.