Concept
Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is belief in one’s capability to organise and execute actions to reach a goal. In education technology contexts it appears as ICT self-efficacy, teaching efficacy, and confidence that shapes engagement and persistence.
Students and teachers attempt hard digital tasks when they believe they can cope. These studies treat self-efficacy as both outcome and correlate of digital learning designs.
Evidence
What the evidence shows
Drawn from 4 studies in this library. Each finding starts with a plain-language takeaway, then the denser detail. Supports means evidence for a finding; Challenges means evidence against a stated position; Qualifies marks scope with a short note on each study’s contribution. Challenged positions are labeled — they are not findings.
Digital learning experiences and training contexts are studied as correlates of ICT or teaching-related self-efficacy and related engagement outcomes.
Common misconceptions
Self-efficacy is just self-esteem.
Self-efficacy is task-specific capability belief — e.g., ICT or instructional tasks — not global self-worth.
Exam-style questions
Short-answer questions that ask you to explain or compare, not recall.
Why does task-specificity matter when measuring self-efficacy in digital education?
Beliefs about using ICT or teaching with technology can diverge from general confidence; interventions target specific capabilities.
The studies
4 studies in this library bear on Self-Efficacy, ordered by citations.
- Online self-efficacy and remote-learning satisfaction
Among Saudi university students in emergency remote learning, online learning, time-management, and technology self-efficacy were central to satisfaction with e-learning.
- Info literacy skills predict teachers’ ICT self-efficacy
For Lithuanian pre-service teachers, stronger perceived information evaluation and search literacy predicted higher ICT self-efficacy for teaching.
- Did research programs protect science confidence in COVID?
Biomedical students in a funded undergraduate research program gained science self-efficacy from 2019 to 2020, unlike matched peers outside the program.
- Project SCORE: youth research and STEM self-efficacy
A Mississippi youth participatory action and near-peer mentoring pipeline was feasible and well liked, with modest non-significant gains in STEM self-efficacy and career interest.
Learn alongside
Change log
What changed
Dated edits to this page's evidence: studies added or removed from a claim, claims added or withdrawn, and new explanations tagged here. Rewordings are not listed.
- Concept page published