By Melissa Farris

A STUDY IN BANDURA’S SELF-EFFICACY THEORY

ALBERT BANDURABIOGRAPHY

Born 1925 in a small town in Canada. Moved to USA for Graduate School.

Enrolled in his first Psychology Class almost by chance, and ultimately received his Ph.D in Clinical Psychology.

Became greatly influenced by Sears, Skinner, and other theorists of social learning theory.

Currently a Faculty Member of Stanford University

Self-Regulation: To be able to regulate one’s own behavior without the need for external rewards or punishments

Self-Efficacy: The measure of one’s belief in one’s own personal capacity to complete a task or fulfill a goal.

Modeling/Vicarious Experience:

A form of learning where one learns how to act or behave based on observing the actions of another individual.

Verbal Persuasion: The action of attempting to effect another’s self-efficacy through words of praise and motivation.

Enactive Mastery Experience: The experience of having completed a task.

Physiological and Affective States: Believing in one’s capabilities based on bodily cues, such as fatigue or tension.

KEY TERMS:

Humans who have achieved the state of self-regulation are influenced in their own self-efficacy mainly by these four main factors:

Enactive Mastery Vicarious Experiences

Verbal Persuasion Physiological and Affective States

The actual experience of Enactive Mastery is the most influential, as it gives the person a

personal, and experiential foundation to base their self-efficacy on.

BANDURA’S SELF-EFFICACY THEORY

The purpose of this study is to test the three main factors that, according to Bandura, have the greatest

influence on self-efficacy.

• Which source of self-efficacy – Enactive Mastery, Vicarious Experience, or Verbal persuasion – has

the greatest influence on the child’s self-efficacy?

• Are there patterns of influence relevant to gender and age?

GOALS AND PURPOSES

HYPOTHESIS

That Bandura will be correct!

That the child’s self-efficacy will be most influenced by the Enactive Mastery Experience.

and…• That there will be a greater decrease of the over-all influence of Modeling and Verbal Persuasion on the older children, as they will have a more definite understanding of their previous experiences to base their self-efficacy

on.• That girls will have a lower self-efficacy over-all in Math

than boys, based upon the social stereotype that boys are better at Math than girls.

At Holy Family, I met with 7th Graders and 4th Graders three times.

There were six 7th Graders, and six 4th Graders.

First Visit

(Control)

• The children were shown a grade appropriate math test, and were asked to rate their belief in their capabilities to answer all the questions correctly.

• These children were then separated into four groups.

Groups A and B of 7th graders

Groups A and B of 4th graders

PROCEDURE

PROCEDURE

Second Visit(Verbal Persuasion and Vicarious Experience)

• The Group A’s were shown a video of a UD student giving a “pep talk” regarding the Math Test they were to take. In this “pep talk”, the children were offered positive Verbal Persuasion.

PROCEDURE

Second Visit(Verbal Persuasion and Vicarious Experience)

• The Group B’s were shown a video of a UD student taking the same test they were to take. In this video, the UD student is reacting positively to the test, commenting on how easy it is, and how she knows she can do it. This offers the children a Vicarious Experience.

PROCEDURE

Second Visit(Verbal Persuasion and Vicarious

Experience) • The children were then asked to rate

themselves again on the Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet, and take the Math Test!

PROCEDURE

Third Visit

(Enactive Mastery Experience)

• All of the tests were graded, and given back to the children.

• After having seen their grade, and outcome of the experience of the test, the children were given a second test. The children were made to understand that it was in the same format as the previous one, only with different questions.

• The children were again asked to rate themselves on the Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet, this time on how well they believed they could do on the second math test, knowing how they did on the first. This was to rate the children having now had their Enactive Mastery Experience.

7th Grader 1

7th Grader 2

7th Grader 3

4th Grader 2

4th Grader 3

4th Grader 5

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (GROUP A)

7th Grader 4

7th Grader 5

7th Grader 6

4th Grader 1

4th Grader 4

4th Grader 6

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (GROUP B)

7th Grader 1

7th Grader 2

7th Grader 3

7th Grader 4

7th Grader 5

7th Grader 6

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (7TH GRADERS)

4th Grader 1

4th Grader 2

4th Grader 3

4th Grader 4

4th Grader 5

4th Grader 6

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (4TH GRADERS)

4th Grader 1

4th Grader 2

4th Grader 3

4th Grader 4

4th Grader 5

4th Grader 6

7th Grader 1

7th Grader 2

7th Grader 3

7th Grader 4

7th Grader 5

7th Grader 6

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit2nd Visit3rd Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (COMPARING BOTH GRADES)

4th (Boy)4th (Boy)4th (Boy)7th (Boy)7th (Boy)7th (Boy)7th (Boy)7th (Boy)4th (Girl)4th (Girl)4th (Girl)7th (Girl)

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1st Visit

(Rating on Self-Efficacy Predictor Sheet)

DATA (COMPARING GENDERS)

• Some children on seeing what mistakes they made, were convinced they wouldn’t have done

that again. In this way the negative Enactive Mastery Experience did not effect their self-

efficacy• Only one participant in the whole study got 100%

on the math test, however, the majority of the 7th Graders’ self-efficacy ratings still remained at a 4.

• There was an increase in a lot of the low scoring 4th Graders on seeing the video, but it shot back

down after taking the test itself.

INTERESTING FINDINGS

Bandura was right!

In the study, there was over-all a greater difference (while certainly not positive) in

the participants’ self-efficacy after the Enactive Mastery Experience.

However…

There was a more positive outcome from the

Vicarious Experience

RESULTS

Differences in Grades

I was correct!

There was a bigger difference in the 4th Graders as a whole upon watching the

videos, whereas the 7th Graders tended to be more confident in themselves.

Difference in Gender

I was correct in this too! (But could use more data)

RESULTS

• Meeting with each participant individually• Harder Math Tests: to push the participants’

to where they weren’t so comfortable. This might have given a wider range in their over-all self-efficacy ratings

• Larger group of kids• More diverse group of participants: i.e. a

public school, or none-Catholic Private School, to see if this affects a child’s self-efficacy)

• An equal number of boys vs. girls.

MODIFICATIONS

NATURE/NURTURE LINE

Nature Nurture

Bandura

Crain, William. "Bandura's Social Learning Theory." Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011. 204-23. Print.

Bandura, Albert. Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997. Print.

McCabe, Patrick. "Convincing Students They Can Learn to Read: Crafting Self-efficacy Prompts." The Clearing House 79.6 (2006): 252-57. Print.

Segelken, Roger. "Putting Research Into Practice: Cornell Tries the "Bandura Model"" Human Ecology 1st ser. 36 (May 2008): 9-10. Print.

BIBLIOGRAPHY