Chapter 5: Self-Efficacy and Self-Concept Beliefs: Jointly Contributing to the Quality of Human Life

In these constructivist days, few would question Jerome Bruner’s (1996) contention that the phenomenon of the self is the single most universal thing about human experience. After all, it is through introspection and self-reflection that meaning is constructed. The assumption that self-knowledge is inextricably tied to human functioning is now so taken for granted that it is a central tenet of most modern theories and views of human cognition and behavior. Similarly, the idea that students’ self-beliefs play a critical role in their academic success is so widely accepted that self-constructs are a regular staple in studies of academic motivation. So much so, in fact, that reviewing the state of knowledge in the area of academic motivation for the 1996 Handbook of Educational Psychology, Sandra Graham and Bernard Weiner observed that “it is evident that the self is on the verge of dominating the field of motivation” (p. 77).