Self-efficacy
Does confidence raise grades by shaping expectations and values?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Students' confidence in their academic skills was linked to better grades and satisfaction only indirectly, through how much they expected to succeed and valued the subject.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cohort — Two-wave correlational survey in secondary classrooms analysed with structural equation modelling of mediation
- N
- N=797 · 797 students from 36 classes in three schools; the sample was randomly split into halves of 399 and 398 for factor analyses, and a few students with incomplete scales were dropped
- Population
- Spanish compulsory secondary students aged 12 to 17
- Outcome
- Term grades and satisfaction with the teaching process
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Key findings
On its own, self-efficacy significantly predicted both achievement and satisfaction. Once expectancy-value beliefs were added, self-efficacy strongly predicted those beliefs, which in turn predicted grades and satisfaction, while the direct path from self-efficacy became non-significant, consistent with full mediation. Achievement expectations, subject value and expected satisfaction with the process loaded most strongly on the mediating factor.
Methodology
Students in 36 secondary classes in eastern Spain completed an academic self-efficacy scale and an expectancy-value scale midway through the first term. Grades and satisfaction with the teaching process were collected midway through the third term. Structural equation models tested whether expectancy-value beliefs (success expectations, subject value, expected feelings with the teacher, expected cost) mediated the self-efficacy effects.
Limitations
This is correlational data, so it cannot show that raising self-efficacy would cause better grades; self-efficacy and expectancy-value beliefs were measured at the same time, so their ordering rests on theory. All measures except grades are self-report, and the schools come from one region of Spain. Mediation was tested with the older Baron and Kenny steps, and some model fit indices were only borderline.
How this study connects
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