SGDY 5033: HUMAN MOTIVATION

LITERATURE REVIEW

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND SELF – EFFICACY

Student’s name: Gunaseelan, S.

Matric Number: 824267

Email: sharvinagobinath@gmail.com

CORRESPONDENCE TO: PROFESSOR DR. ROSNA BT. AWANG HASHIM

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND MODERN LANGUAGES

Introduction

This paper review on self – efficacy, a component of social cognitive theory. A topic raised to find

the relationship between academic achievement and self – efficacy. Self – efficacy according to

Bandura, (1986) is “people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of

action required to attain designated types of performances” (p.391). Self – efficacy is strongly

related to effort and task persistence (Bandura & Cervone, 1983, 1986; Shunk & Pajares, 2009).

Salomon (1984) found that student high in efficacy were more likely to be cognitively engaged in

learning when the task was perceived as difficult but less likely to be effortful and less cognitively

engaged in learning when the task was deemed easy. The literature to be reviewed is derived from

journal articles published between 2010 and 2018. Most of the researches were carried out in

Europe countries and also eastern Asian countries. From the literature review it is observed, self –

efficacy is significant to academic achievement, though are still many questions not resolved.

Implication for future on students’ self – efficacy discussed.

 A review of the literature

Social cognitive theory

Self-efficacy, central to the theoretical framework of social cognition, arises from Bandura’s

(1977, 1986) seminal work and concerns individuals’ belief in their capability to execute required

courses of action. Self-efficacy differs from other related conceptions of personal competence that

form the core constructs of other theories as it deals primarily with individuals’ capabilities to

produce results and attain designated types of performance (Pajares, 1997). Bandura (1977)

explains the concept of self-efficacy as the primary motivational force behind an individual’s

actions. Self-efficacy is one of the most consistently defined motivational constructs used in the

research (Murphy & Alexander, 2001). Self-efficacy, enables learners to be more cognitively,

behaviorally, and motivationally engaged in their learning processes. (Linnenbrink & Pintrich,

2003). This means that self-efficacy has a significant role in determining the learners'

achievements, along with skill and knowledge (Bandura, 1993; Pajares, 2002). Further, self-

efficacy might explain why different individuals' performances differ markedly despite them

possessing similar knowledge and skills (Bandura, 1986, 1993), or why the same learners perform

differently at different times (Bouffard-Bouchard, 2001). There are a few antecedents effecting

students’ self – efficacy. I will discuss in the next section.

Antecedents

Social persuasion

There are four articles discussing about the effect of social persuasion on the self - efficacy of

learners. Won, S., Lee, S. Y., And Bong, M. (2017) operationally defined teachers’ social

persuasions as verbal encouragement and positive feedback indicating that a student could perform

well academically with the investment of effort. The researchers find the role of social persuasions

delivered by teachers as an important source of self-efficacy information for students. Besides, to

test the credibility of teachers as a partial determinant of their persuasive power in the appraisal of

students’ academic self-efficacy. Supporting Bandura’s claim (1997), students’ recollections of

positive verbal messages from teachers indeed predicted students’ subjective convictions that they

could learn and perform successfully at school if they tried hard and did not give up. Also

consistent with previous findings, students’ academic self-efficacy was a significant predictor of

their expected future achievement. The data from the research found that the interaction between

student perceptions of teachers’ social persuasions and teachers’ credibility on students’ academic

self-efficacy proved significant. Another research also supports social persuasion in term of

classroom teaching.

The researchers, Cheung, D. and Lai, E. (2013) revealed that students’ levels of personal

development self-efficacy (PDSE) were related to their self-reported academic achievement.

Students who judged themselves to be high-achieving reported that they were personally most

confident. This finding is consistent with those from previous research (e.g., Bandura et al., 1996).

In addition, we found that those students whose parents had received tertiary education were likely

to get a higher PDSE score. Bandura et al. (1996) also obtained similar findings. They also found
the higher the families’ socioeconomic status, the higher the parental academic aspirations they

had for their children, which in turn positively affected children’s self -regulatory efficacy.

A research from Hushman, C. J. and Marley, S. C. (2015) also reveals the effect social

persuasion. They reported children who received guided instruction had greater changes in their

science self-efficacy than those who received direct or minimal instruction. The data from the

research provides evidence supporting the positive relationship between success when learning

science and science self-efficacy (Britner & Pajares, 2001; Pajares et al., 2000). An explanation

for condition-related differences in favor of guided instruction is that students recognized their

successes when designing experiments, which in turn improved their self-efficacy.

The next article is by Skaalvik, E. M. et al. (2015) finds students’ perceptions of the

teachers as emotionally supportive and strongly related to students’ self-efficacy. Also, self-

efficacy was the strongest predictor of intrinsic motivation.

Prior knowledge

There is an article discussing about prior knowledge as a factor of self – efficacy. Demiralay, R.

& Karadeníz, C. (2010) found from the research that student teachers' perceived information

literacy level is high. Student teachers in this study would have empowered their information

literacy skills through research homework and projects. Certainly, having experience in doing

researches or project may not be sufficient to explain the high level of information literacy. As

literature shows, positive experiences (Bandura, 1986; Delcourt & Kinzie, 1993) and knowledge

and skill levels (Pajares, 2002) are related to the high perceived information literacy. In this

research, student teachers would have strengthen their perceived information literacy level through
having positive experiences on developing skills of accessing information, using information and

constructing knowledge.

Vicarious learning

An article discussed about vicarious learning as a source of self - efficacy. According to Cave, P.

N. et al. (2017) a majority of students frequently mentioned that, due to these partnerships, their

fears decreased and their confidence increased. The finding suggests that the use of self-efficacy-

building strategies within motivational partnerships helped increase student self-efficacy. The

results also reaffirm that significant self-efficacy levels enhance motivation. Lastly, the

partnerships benefited students in other social, affective, and educational ways.

Personal quality

Data from research by Juan, A., Hannan, S. & Namome, C. (2018) self-efficacy was found to be

positively associated with achievement. Higher levels of enjoyment, which had the highest

association with science achievement compared with the other two attitudinal indices (value and

self-efficacy in science), and improved self-efficacy, may therefore translate into more effort being

put into learning and understanding school science.

Enactive performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and

emotional states

There is an article researched four major source of self – efficacy. Phan. H. P. (2012) finds that

children’s self-efficacy for English and mathematics learning increased over time. Further, of the

four informational sources, enactive performance accomplishments associated closely with the

growth of change of English and mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. Children’s emotional states

also associated negatively with the growth of change of mathematics self-efficacy. Enactive

performance accomplishments and verbal persuasion associated positively with the initial levels

of English and mathematics self-efficacy.

Gender difference

Article by Kaur, A. & Singh, A. (2017) indicates there are statistically significant different among

male and female on student on dimension general self – efficacy and academic self – efficacy but

statistically there exist no significant different among male and female on student on social general

self – efficacy, emotional self- efficacy and child’s total self – efficacy.

What does self – efficacy predicts

Article by Anam, S. and Stracke, E. (2016) researched self – efficacy as predictor of self –

regulation. They identified a significant difference in strategy use as a function of English self-

efficacy. This suggests that students who perceived themselves capable of performing English

tasks tended to use learning strategies more often than those who did not, which concurs with

previous studies (Li & Wang, 2010; Purdie & Oliver, 1999). The students with strong self-efficacy

were possibly more motivated, and so put more effort in their strategy use. Their more frequent

strategy use also indicates that they were more likely to be more engaged (Linnenbrink & Pintrich,
2003) and more self-regulated in learning processes (Zimmerman, 2000). These learners also had

greater confidence to participate in the classroom interactions and were better at regulating their

affects.
Discussion / implication

According to review of the literature, the articles have been grouped into the factors effecting self-

efficacy, such as social persuasion, prior knowledge, vicarious learning, personal quality, then

gender as mediating self – efficacy and also what does self – efficacy predicts for instance self -

regulation. Most of the articles, have positive significant on social persuasion and self – efficacy.

Socializers for students are mainly teachers as the students spending a huge time in school, also

parents, and in a certain context are peers.

In addition, to enhance students self – efficacy, teachers should provide challenging task

with the support necessary for them to succeed. Furthermore, students self – efficacy positively

significance to vicarious/ observatiovnal learning. The source of self-efficacy comes from the

observation of people around them, especially people they consider as role models. Seeing people

similar to themselves succeed by their sustained effort raises our beliefs that they too possess the

capabilities to master the activities needed for success in that learning. Thus, have students observe

others success will help them to motivate themselves. Social persuasion in an endeavor to increase

self- efficacy, by reminding the students of their successes. Also, keep encouraging them will build

self – efficacy. We should also consider the physiological indexes, such as minimal anxiety to

make sure students learn better. On the other hand, parents also playing an important role in

increasing students’ self- efficacy. Parents should provide supportive learning environments.

Also, gender differences has to be taken into consideration as it gives impact on self –

efficacy.
Conclusion and limitation

Self –efficacy has an impact on academic achievement. However, there are certain limitation were

present in this study. The reviews of articles on self – efficacy mostly experimented the students

of same culture. Malaysia as a country comprises more than three major ethnics, differing

languages and cultures, thus research on cross – cultural context is needed. Malaysian ministry of

education is endeavoring to help the primary schools which is using mother tongue language as

the medium such as Malay language, Chinese language and Tamil language to improve English as

second language. Besides, studies from countries in southeast Asia is very limited on students self

– efficacy. The socio-culture gap with the Europe countries and Asian countries is far different.

Thus, it is found a barrier to relate with Malaysian students. As a conclusion, future research in the

context of cross – cultural country is expected.

 References

Anam, S. and Stracke, E. (2016). Language learning strategies of Indonesian primary school

students: In relation to self-efficacy beliefs. System 60, 1-10.

Cave, P. N. et al. (2017). Motivational partnerships: increasing ESL student self-efficacy. ELT

Journal, 1-14. doi:10.1093/elt/ccx027.

Cheung, D. and Lai, E. (2013). The effects of classroom teaching on students’ self-efficacy for

personal development. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 41, No. 2, 164-

177.

Demiralay, R. & Karadeníz, C. (2010). The Effect of Use of Information and Communication

Technologies on Elementary Student Teachers' Perceived Information Literacy Self-

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Hushman, C. J. and Marley, S. C. (2015). Guided Instruction Improves Elementary Student

Learning and Self-Efficacy in Science. The Journal of Educational Research, 108, 371–

381.

Juan, A., Hannan, S. & Namome, C. (2018). I believe I can do science: Self-efficacy and science

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Kaur, A. & Singh, A. (2017). A study of self – efficacy in terms of gender differences among

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Skaalvik, E. M. et al. (2015). Mathematics achievement and self-efficacy: Relations with

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Won, S., Lee, S. Y., And Bong, M. (2017). Social Persuasions By Teachers As A Source Of

Student Self-Efficacy: The Moderating Role Of Perceived Teacher Credibility. Psychology

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