Shyam Barr

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PREFACE

This blog discusses topics that exist between the fields cognitive psychology and leadership, teaching and learning. Although I make connections between research and personal experience (my attempt at bridging the age-old ‘theory-practice’ gap), I write for a general audience. It is as Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi stated in the preface of his book FLOW:

“To take this step is somewhat dangerous, because as soon as one strays from the stylised constraints of academic prose, it is easy to become careless or overly enthusiastic about such a topic” (p. xi)

To avoid carelessness, I will endeavour to include references to journal articles, books and alike (as commonly expected in academic writing), but not at the expense of accessibility and ease of reading. This will be a delicate balance and one I will endeavour to achieve.

To end, I chose the word ‘discusses’ in the first sentence of this preface, to highlight that although the blog articles themselves are very much a dialogue between myself and what I read, I encourage you to share your comments and questions, so that we may start a more authentic discussion. 

 
 

Self-efficacy: A mediating factor between thought and action

As teachers, we often meet students who lack confidence in their ability to achieve in our subject or complete a specific task. We try several strategies (creating scaffolds, working with the student 1-1, providing detailed feedback etc.), but sometimes the growth is small and we wonder whether there is something else that we can be doing. There absolutely is.

The notion of self-efficacy, an individual’s belief that he/she has the necessary capabilities to successfully perform a specific task (Bandura, 1997) has been around for the past three decades. Researchers have tested its’ effects with most concluding that a reciprocal relationship exists with performance. In other words, “high self-efficacy positively affects performance, and good performance, in turn, positively affects one’s sense of self-efficacy” (Bruning, Schraw, & Norby, 2011, p. 109).

People with high self-efficacy have been shown to set harder challenges for themselves, visualize success and persist in the face of difficulty (Bandura, 2000). The benefits seem endless, yet many of us do not possess the relevant pedagogical knowledge to effectively support our students to develop high levels of self-efficacy, let alone the strategies to improve our own self-efficacy.

Please note: Self-efficacy is not the same as self-esteem. Self-esteem is more a general sense of confidence, while self-efficacy is specific to a task. For example, you may have a student who has high self-esteem (in general) but a low self-efficacy for writing essays. Or vice versa, you may have a student who has low self-esteem (in general) but a high self-efficacy for writing essays.

Here’s a simple activity to get your students thinking about their own self-efficacy? (but you can also do this activity as a teacher)

Start by providing students a list of 10 or so activities that they currently engage in (e.g. for science this might be; note taking, completing set homework, conducting experiments, drawing tables/figures, writing up experiments, etc.). Get the students to rate each activity on a scale of 1-10 (1 being low self-efficacy, 10 being high self-efficacy). Was there a difference in their scores for each activity? I expect there is because self-efficacy is specific to each individual task. Once the students have some awareness of the tasks that they have a low self-efficacy for, they can begin to adopt strategies to increase their self-efficacy.

Below are 4 strategies that you can use to improve your own self-efficacy along with suggestions for how you might implement these practices with your students.

 

4 strategies to improve self-efficacy

#1 Building success

Success build on success. Depending on the task, this means that you may like to break the task/action into smaller actions and focus on each smaller action first. Build your self-efficacy by successfully completing each action from here. Alternatively, you could write a win list* and reflect on when you have completed similar actions and achieved success. By investing time to focus on you past successes and counteract your brain’s negativity bias (a concept I’ll discuss in a future blog), you will begin to develop a stronger self-efficacy for the primary action at hand.

Note, Bandura (2012) argues that “if people experience only easy successes they come to expect quick results and are easily discouraged by setbacks and failures. Resilient self-efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort”. So… it’s important to set yourself challenging goals for each smaller action.

Teaching suggestion: If you have a student who you suspect to have low self-efficacy for your subject, get the student to share moments when they have had success in the subject. How did that success make them feel? What strategies, level of effort and resources allowed them to achieve success then? Can those same strategies, level of effort and resources be applied to the current situation/task?

*A win list (in this context) is simply a list of moments when you successfully completed a similar action in the past.

#2 Find a model

Find someone who has completed the same (or similar) action before you and get them to show you how they did it. If we can find someone who we consider to be a similar level of ability to ourselves succeed with the task we are trying to complete, we are more likely to believe we can achieve it as well. Likewise, if we observe a similar leveled individual fail at the task, then this may instill doubt about our own ability. Additionally, we can learn new knowledge and skill by observing a competent model (Bandura, 1997).

Teaching suggestion: A fellow educator uses the phrase ‘ask an expert’ with his class of Year 7 students. To clarify, his class understands that an expert is a competent model (not necessarily the highest achieving student in the class, but someone who has the required skill to help move them forward). It’s a strategy that he gets his students to use when they have a question about the task at hand or require some assistance in executing the actions. By using the phrase ‘ask an expert’, he is explicitly naming a learning strategy that students can utilize when facing difficulty. Let’s be honest, selecting a suitable model to demonstrate a particular task is a life-long help-seeking skill that high achievers utilize even as they get older.

#3 Social persuasion

We often don’t acknowledge how important some encouraging words have on our self-efficacy and ultimately our performance. This is social persuasion, when someone persuades you that you have “what it takes to succeed” (Bandura, 2000, p. 212). When someone you admire (a friend, a teacher, parents) show their belief in your ability, this increases your self-efficacy resulting in higher levels of effort toward the task.

Teaching suggestion: Don’t underestimate the power your words have on a student’s self-efficacy for your subject or a specific task. It’s important to be genuine in your communication. So if you have a student who has low self-efficacy but is also a low performer, focus your comments on indicating your belief that the student has what it takes to move forward from where they are as opposed to necessarily having what it takes to successfully complete the whole task.

#4 Change your state

Our judgement of self-efficacy can be heavily influenced by our physical and emotional states. If you are in an anxious or depressed state, then it is likely you will report lower self-efficacy as opposed to if you are in calm or peaceful state. Likewise, physical strength and stamina has also been associated with self-efficacy.

Although there are several strategies that can be employed, you may like to consider the benefits of adopting some form of mindfulness practice. There are many mindfulness practice based apps that are freely available and in my opinion relatively good. A mindful practice focused on slowing your breathing rate is one method of changing your emotional state to a calm and less-anxious state.

Teaching suggestion: Consider the state of your students when they rate their self-efficacy for tasks. To demonstrate this effect, you may like to get students to rate themselves a number of times when they are experiencing different states. Knowing that state influences self-efficacy, and self-efficacy influences performance, think carefully about how the classroom environment and culture influences students’ states. Is the atmosphere calming or stressful? I suggest building in opportunities for mindfulness or mindful learning – you may like to read Dr. Craig Hassed’s book Mindful learning for other ideas (http://mindfullearning.com.au/).

Don’t be fooled though. Our perceived self-efficacy (as in our self-reported self-efficacy) is not always the same as actual self-efficacy. If you are finding that you are still struggling to achieve your action, then it could be that you have inaccurately self-appraised or that another mediating factor is at play. In other words, reconsider how you rate your self-efficacy for this task or begin considering the other factors (i.e. interest, systematic constraints) that may require change before you can effectively move forward.

 

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Bandura, A. (2000). Self-efficacy: American Psychological Association Oxford University Press.

Bandura, A. (2012). On the Functional Properties of Perceived Self-Efficacy Revisited. Journal of management., 38(1), 9-44. doi:10.1177/0149206311410606

Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., & Norby, M. M. (2011). Cognitive psychology and instruction (5 ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Shyam Barrlearning, self-efficacyComment