What strategy is most useful in promoting self-efficacy in educators and in learners?

Self-efficacy is the belief that we can achieve a desired goal through our actions. Our feelings of self-efficacy prompt us to act. Albert Bandura, a social psychologist, researches the factors that impact self-efficacy. In Self Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, Bandura theorized that students draw on four sources to develop their self-efficacy:

1. Mastery or previous learning experiences
2. Vicarious experiences such as modeling and visualizing success
3. Social persuasion such as feedback on abilities from others
4. Personal factors including emotional and physiological states (e.g. fatigue)

Bandura suggests that mastery experiences or previous experiences have the greatest impact in developing a student’s self-efficacy.

One strategy to promote self-efficacy is to direct students to reflect on their performance using explicitly provided “quality criteria.”  I like to think of quality criteria has having two components: Must Haves — the requirements — and Amazings — the added qualities that challenge students (especially early finishers) to go beyond the requirements. Must Haves ensure that all students are focused on reaching the required standards or objectives. For example, Must Haves may include required vocabulary, using the word “because,” or supporting ideas with evidence. Amazings criteria, on the other hand, provide room to extend expectations, ensuring that all students are challenged. Amazings may include using advanced vocabulary, providing alternate strategies or perspectives, and including all group members in a response.

Self-efficacy is linked to experiencing an appropriate level of challenge in tasks, also called the zone of proximal development. Must Haves and Amazing criteria enable teachers to assign criteria to all, some, and/or individual learners to ensure students with a wide range of abilities feel stretched while completing a common task.

Notice the difference in these teacher directions:

Criteria provide a concrete means for students to notice their actions and how their efforts have led to learning. Teachers can direct students to annotate or circle the quality criteria seen in their work. For example, after completing an assignment, students could circle vocabulary words used from the word wall or draw an arrow to show connections to previous assignments or something happening in the community. When students examine their tasks over time, they will recognize their persistence and growth in working toward specific quality criteria in their learning. These reflections build self-efficacy and prompt goal setting for the student’s next steps.

Quality criteria also support teachers in their efforts to offer specific actionable feedback and model reflecting on completed work. When teachers use the same criteria over time, they also benefit because they can notice how their actions have led to student learning.

References

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

Vygotsky, L. (1987). Zone of proximal development. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, 5291, 157.

By Rhonda Bondie

Although the request asks for one strategy, I suggest considering one framework that could feed a number of specific strategies. An understanding of underlying principles allows us to approach strategies with some metacognitive awareness of why they may or may not work with different individuals or with different groups.

Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief about his or her ability to perform a task, such as writing an essay, mastering a new technology, or motivating a group of disengaged students. A useful starting framework involves two closely related constructs: mastery and identity.

If a learner has accumulated a history of failure in a domain, like math or literature, or with a type of task, like word problems or essay-writing, then it’s not unusual for his confidence to be low in that area. One direct way to fuel confidence is to provide evidence of competence, or mastery. Seeing that you have accomplished a similar task before, or aspects of that task, can bolster self-efficacy.

An individual’s past history of achievement, coupled with the messages surrounding it, can also influence that person’s identity as it relates to that domain. A group of students who tend to do poorly in math, for instance, might adopt a self-reinforcing identity of “kids who aren’t good in math.” Peers who share a similar history of poor performance can help ease each other’s pain of failure. Indeed (and unfortunately), repeated failure can strengthen ties of belonging to the group. Conversely, a high-achieving social identity can fuel extra effort (which, also unfortunately, can include cheating) to sustain that identity and sense of belonging.

Any strategy to promote self-efficacy, for students or teachers, should consider both the individual and the social context. Give individuals a window into their growing competence while fostering a culture that rewards growth and effort.

What might that combination look like for both students and teachers?

For students, focus on tracking and rewarding progress. A curriculum is broken down into a progression of learning objectives, and teachers can often break down those objectives and tasks further. Help students see themselves progress. Show them where they have developed mastery, and then focus them on the next step in the path, working to keep them in their individual zones of proximal development. The focus should be on accumulated mastery — “look what I can do now!” — rather than on distance to completion —  “what’s the fastest way to be done with this?” Then celebrate that progress for each student. We don’t want to foster identities of students who can and students who can’t.

For teachers, it’s the same thing: focus on tracking progress. For instance, there’s no reason to expect a teacher to master a new instructional approach or program the first time she or he tries it. Although, unfortunately, the education world hasn’t spent much time breaking down pathways for teacher growth, teachers are learners too, who benefit from seeing competence unfold. And social identity, context, and culture matter for teachers too. Like their students, teachers learn best when they feel they belong to a group that honors and supports growth — where asking for help to improve practice is a sign of a productive, strategic learner, rather than an incompetent performer.

By David Dockterman