proximal goals - bandura & schunk, 1981

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1981, Vol. 41, No. 3, 586-598

Copyright 1981 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/81 /4103-0586S00.75

Cultivating Competence, Self-Efficacy, and IntrinsicInterest Through Proximal Self-Motivation

Albert Bandura and Dale H. SchunkStanford University

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that self-motivation through prox-imal goal setting serves as an effective mechanism for cultivating competencies,self-percepts of efficacy, and intrinsic interest. Children who exhibited grossdeficits and disinterest in mathematical tasks pursued a program of self-directedlearning under conditions involving either proximal subgoals, distal goals, or nogoals. Results of the multifaceted assessment provide support for the superiorityof proximal self-influence. Under proximal subgoals, children progressed rapidlyin self-directed learning, achieved substantial mastery of mathematical opera-tions, and developed a sense of personal efficacy and intrinsic interest in arith-metic activities that initially held little attraction for them. Distal goals had nodemonstrable effects. In addition to its other benefits, goal proximity fosteredveridical self-knowledge of capabilities as reflected in high congruence betweenjudgments of mathematical self-efficacy and subsequent mathematical perfor-mance. Perceived self-efficacy was positively related to accuracy of mathematicalperformance and to intrinsic interest in arithmetic activities.

Much human behavior is directed and sus-tained over long periods, even though theexternal inducements for it may be few andfar between. Under conditions in which ex-ternal imperatives are minimal and discon-tinuous, people must partly serve as agentsof their own motivation and action. In sociallearning theory (Bandura, 1977b, in press),self-directedness operates through a self sys-tem that comprises cognitive structures andsubfunctions for perceiving, evaluating, mo-tivating, and regulating behavior.

An important, cognitively based source of

This research was supported by Public Health Re-search Grant M-5162 from the National Institute ofMental Health. We are deeply indebted to the manypeople who assisted us in this project: Ruthe Lundy andJack Gibbany of the Palo Alto Unified School Districtarranged the necessary research facilities. School prin-cipals Jerry Schmidt, Gene Tankersley, John Tuomy,Roger Wilder, and their staffs offered whatever helpwas needed to facilitate the research. Jamey Friend andBarbara Searle of the Stanford Institute for Mathe-matical Studies in the Social Sciences furnished us withinvaluable information on mathematical subfunctions,which served as the basis for the self-instructional ma-terial. Finally, we owe a debt of appreciation to DebbyDyar and Linda Curyea for their generous and ableassistance in the conduct of the experiment.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Albert Ban-dura, Department of Psychology, Building 420, JordanHall, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.

self-motivation relies on the intervening pro-cesses of goal setting and self-evaluative re-actions to one's own behavior. This formof self-motivation, which operates largelythrough internal comparison processes, re-quires personal standards against which toevaluate ongoing performance. By makingself-satisfaction conditional on a certainlevel of performance, individuals create self-inducements to persist in their efforts untiltheir performances match internal stan-dards. Both the anticipated satisfactions formatching attainments and the dissatisfac-tions with insufficient ones provide incen-tives for self-directed actions.

Personal goals or standards do not auto-matically activate the evaluative processesthat affect the level and course of one's be-havior. Certain properties of goals, such astheir specificity and level, help to provideclear standards of adequacy (Latham &Yukl, 1975; Locke, 1968; Steers & Porter,1974). Hence, explicit goals are more likelythan vague intentions to engage self-reactiveinfluences in any given activity. Goal prox-imity, a third property, is especially criticalbecause the more closely referential stan-dards are related to ongoing behavior, thegreater the likelihood that self-influenceswill be activated during the process. Some

586

PROXIMAL SELF-MOTIVATION 587

suggestive evidence exists that the impact ofgoals on behavior is indeed determined byhow far into the future they are projected(Bandura & Simon, 1977; Jeffery, 1977).

In the social learning view, adopting prox-imal subgoals for one's own behavior canhave at least three major psychological ef-fects. As already alluded to, such goals havemotivational effects. One of the propositionstested in the present experiment is that self-motivation can be best created and sustainedby attainable subgoals that lead to largerfuture ones. Proximal subgoals provide im-mediate incentives and guides for perfor-mance, whereas distal goals are too far re-moved in time to effectively mobilize effortor to direct what one does in the here andnow. Focus on the distant future makes iteasy to temporize and to slacken efforts inthe present.

Proximal subgoals can also serve as animportant vehicle in the development of self-percepts of efficacy. Competence in dealingwith one's environment is not a fixed act orsimply knowing what to do. Rather, it in-volves a generative capability in which com-ponent skills must be selected and organizedinto integrated courses of action to managechanging task demands. Operative compe-tence thus requires flexible orchestration ofmultiple subskills. Self-efficacy is concernedwith judgments about how well one can or-ganize and execute courses of action re-quired to deal with prospective situationscontaining many ambiguous, unpredictable,and often stressful elements. Self-perceptsof efficacy can affect people's choice of ac-tivities, how much effort they expend, andhow long they will persist in the face of dif-ficulties (Bandura, 1977a; Brown & Inouye,1978; Schunk, 1981).

Without standards against which to mea-sure their performances, people have littlebasis for judging how they are doing or forgauging their capabilities. Subgoal attain-ments provide indicants of mastery for en-hancing self-efficacy. By contrast, distalgoals are too far removed in time to providesufficiently clear markers of progress alongthe way to ensure a growing sense of self-efficacy.

The processes underlying the developmentof intrinsic interest may similarly be gov-

erned, at least in part, by goal proximity.Most of the activities that people enjoy doingfor their own sake originally had little or nointerest for them. Young children are notinnately interested in singing operatic arias,playing tubas, deriving mathematical equa-tions, writing sonnets, or propelling heavyshotput balls through the air. However,through favorable continued involvement,almost any activity can become imbued withconsuming significance.

One can posit at least two ways in whichproximal goals might contribute to enhance-ment of interest in activities. When peopleaim for, and master, desired levels of per-formance, they experience a sense of satis-faction (Locke, Cartledge, & Knerr, 1970).The satisfactions derived from subgoal at-tainments can build intrinsic interest. Whenperformances are gauged against lofty, dis-tal goals, the large negative disparities be-tween standards and attainments are likelyto attenuate the level of self-satisfaction ex-perienced along the way.

Conceptual analyses of intrinsic interestwithin the framework of both self-efficacytheory (Bandura, 1981) and intrinsic moti-vation theory (Deci, 1975; Lepper & Greene,1979) assign perceived competence a me-diating role. A sense of personal efficacy inmastering challenges is apt to generategreater interest in the activity than is self-perceived inefficacy in producing competentperformances. To the extent that proximalsubgoals promote and authenticate a senseof causal agency, they can heighten interestthrough their effects on perception of per-sonal causation.

Investigations of intrinsic interest havebeen concerned almost exclusively with theeffects of extrinsic rewards on interest whenit is already highly developed. Although re-sults are somewhat variable, the usual find-ing is that rewards given regardless of qual-ity of performance tend to reduce interest,whereas rewards for performances signifyingcompetence sustain high interest (Boggiano& Ruble, 1979; Enzle & Ross, 1978; Lepper& Greene, 1979; Ross, 1976). The contro-versy over the effects of extrinsic rewards onpreexisting high interest has led to a neglectof the issue of how intrinsic interest is de-veloped when it is lacking. One of the present

588 ALBERT BANDURA AND DALE H. SCHUNK

study's aims was to test the notion that prox-imal subgoals enlist the type of sustainedinvolvement in activities that build self-ef-ficacy and interest when they are absent.

Children who displayed gross deficits inmathematical skills and strong disinterest insuch activities engaged in self-directedlearning over a series of sessions. They pur-sued the self-paced learning under condi-tions involving either proximal subgoals, dis-tal goals, or bids to work actively withoutany reference to goals. It was predicted thatself-motivation through proximal subgoalswould prove most effective in cultivatingmathematical competencies, self-percepts ofefficacy, and intrinsic interest in mathemat-ical activities. For reasons given earlier, dis-tal goals were not expected to exceed bidsto work actively in promoting changes. Itwas hypothesized further that strength ofself-efficacy would predict subsequent ac-curacy on mathematical tasks and level ofintrinsic interest.

Method

Subjects

The subjects were 40 children of predominantly mid-dle-class backgrounds, ranging in age from 7.3 to 10.1years, with a mean age of 8.4 years. There were 21males and 19 females distributed equally by age andsex across conditions.

Children were drawn from six elementary schools. Asan initial screening procedure, teachers identified chil-dren in their classes who displayed gross deficits in arith-metic skills and low interest in such activities. The pre-treatment procedures were administered to each of theidentified children by one of two testers (a male and afemale) to determine whether the children's arithmeticskills were sufficiently deficient to qualify for the ex-periment.

Pretreatment Measures

The study was presented to the children as a projectaimed at gaining understanding of how arithmetic skillsare acquired. To reduce further any evaluative concerns,they were informed that the project was being conductedin several schools and that their work would be treatedin full confidence.

Mathematical performance test. The performancepretest consisted of 25 subtraction problems graded bylevel of difficulty. The test problems, which ranged fromtwo to six columns, were specifically designed so as totap each of seven subtraction operations that were in-cluded in the treatment phase of the study.

Of the 25 pretest problems, 8 were similar in formand difficulty to some of the types of items used in thesubsequent treatment phase. To test for generalizationeffects, 17 problems required application of the varioussubtraction operations to problem forms that were morecomplex than those children would encounter in the self-instructional phase. For example, in treatment theylearned how to borrow once or twice from zero in, atmost, four-column problems, whereas a generalizationitem would require borrowing from three consecutivezeros in a six-column set. To add a further element ofcomplexity, all the test problems were cast in a form inwhich the minuend and the difference between the min-uend and the subtrahend were provided so that childrenhad to solve the subtrahend.

Children were presented the set of 25 subtractionproblems one at a time on separate pages and were in-structed to turn each page over after they had solvedthe problem or had chosen not to work at it any longer.The tester recorded the time spent on each problem.The measure of competence in subtraction was the num-ber of problems in which the children applied the correctsubtraction operation.

Pilot work in the development of the test proceduresrevealed that children who do not fully comprehend sub-traction operations fail to grasp the nature of their de-ficiency because they faithfully apply an erroneous al-gorithm. When presented with a subtraction problem,they simply subtract the smaller number from the largerone in each column regardless of whether the smallernumber is the minuend or the subtrahend. To addressthis problem at the outset of the experiment proper,after children completed the arithmetic pretest theycompared their solutions to the correct answers. How-ever, children performed the posttest without feedbackof accuracy.

Since this study centered on motivational processesby which competencies, perceived efficacy, and interestcan be developed when they are lacking, children whosolved more than four problems were excluded. The se-lected sample of children indeed exhibited gross deficits;one third could not solve a single problem, and anotherthird could only solve one.

The children's substantial quantitative deficiencieswere further confirmed by standardized measures oftheir mathematical ability obtained from the school dis-trict on three subtests of the Metropolitan AchievementTest (Durost, Bixler, Wrightstone, Prescott, & Balow,1970). They occupied the bottom percentile ranks incomputation (22), concepts (27), and problem solving(22). Children in the various treatment conditions didnot differ in this respect.

Self-efficacy judgment. Before measuring perceivedmathematical efficacy, children performed a practicetask to familiarize them with the efficacy assessmentformat. The tester stood at varying distances from thechildren and asked them to judge whether they couldjump selected distances and to rate on a 100-point scalethe degree of certainty of their perceived capability. Inthis concrete way, children learned how to use numericalscale values to convey the strength of their self-judgedefficacy.

In measuring strength of mathematical self-efficacy,children were shown, for 2 sec each, 25 cards containing


pairs of subtraction problems of varying difficulty. Thisbrief exposure was sufficient to portray the nature ofthe tasks but much too short to even attempt any so-lutions. After each sample exposure, children judgedtheir capability to solve the type of problem depictedand rated privately the strength of their perceived ef-ficacy on a 100-point scale, ranging in 10-unit intervalsfrom high uncertainty through intermediate values ofcertainty to complete certitude. The higher the scalevalue, the stronger the perceived self-efficacy. The mea-sure of strength of self-efficacy was obtained by dividingthe summed magnitude scores by the total number ofproblems.

Self-Instructional Material

Research conducted at the Stanford Institute ofMathematical Studies has shown that competence insubtraction requires several subskills (Friend & Burton,1981). These include subtracting a number from a largerone, subtracting zero, subtracting a number from itself,borrowing once, borrowing caused by zero, borrowingtwice, borrowing from 1, and borrowing from zero.Seven sets of instructional material were designed,which incorporated the various subtraction operations.The material was organized in such a way that childrencould work independently at their own pace over a seriesof sessions.

The format of each instructional set was identical.The first page of each set contained a full explanationof the relevant subtraction operation, along with twoexamples illustrating how the solution strategies areapplied. The following six pages contained sets of prob-lems to be solved using the designated operation. Pre-testing showed that if children worked at a steady pace,they could complete each self-instructional set in about25 min.

Procedure for Self-Directed Learning

One of three experimenters (one male and two fe-males) brought the children individually, at slightlystaggered times, into the study room, where they wereseated in different locations, facing away from eachother to preclude any visual contact. Both the experi-menter and the schools from which the children weredrawn were the same across treatment conditions. Theentire set of instructional materials was placed facedown on the table. The children were informed that theycould work on these subtraction problems for seven 30-min. sessions.

In describing the procedure for self-directed learning,the experimenter turned over the first page, which ex-plained the subtraction operation for the first six-pageset. Children were told that whenever they came to apage of instructions, they should bring it to the exper-imenter who would read it to them. Then they shouldsolve, on their own, the subtraction problems containedon the succeeding pages. If children asked for furtherassistance with the instructions, the experimenter simplyreread the relevant sections of the instructions but neversupplemented them in any way. Since the instructionswere self-explanatory and the importance of children

working on their own was underscored, they rarelysought the experimenter's attention during the sessions.

The self-directed study was conducted on consecutiveschool days. At the end of each session, children markedwhere they had stopped and simply resumed work atthat point in the subsequent session.

The situational arrangement for the instructionalphase of the study was designed to leave the initiativeto the children, thus allowing leeway for self-directed-ness and self-motivation to exert their effects. By work-ing independently but in a group setting, none of thechildren was the focus of attention. The seating ar-rangement and sequential entry precluded communi-cation between the children. After delivering the in-structions, the experimenter retired to a table away fromthe children and remained as unobtrusive as possiblethroughout the sessions. By having children in differenttreatments pursue separately the self-directed learningin the same setting at the same time, social and situa-tional factors that might otherwise vary were compa-rable across treatment conditions.

Treatment Conditions

Children were assigned randomly to one of threetreatment conditions or to a nontreated control group.The instructions, format, and materials for the self-di-rected study were identical across treatment conditionsexcept for variations in goal setting.

Proximal goals. For children in the proximal-goaltreatment, the experimenter suggested that they mightconsider setting themselves a goal of completing at leastsix pages of instructional items each session. To givesome salience to a continuing goal orientation, the sug-gestion of proximal goals was made at the beginning ofthe second session as well. There was no further mentionof goals thereafter.

Distal goals. For children assigned to the distal-goaltreatment, the experimenter suggested that they mightconsider setting themselves the goal of completing theentire 42 pages of instructional items by the end of theseventh session, which comprised a total of 258 prob-lems.

In both treatment conditions, the goals were men-tioned suggestively rather than prescriptively so as toleave the goal-setting decision to the children. This modeof goal structuring was used for two reasons. First, itwas designed to increase children's self-involvement inthe instructional task. Second, choice increases the levelof personal responsibility and commitment to goals.

No goals. A third group of children pursued the self-directed learning without any reference to goals. How-ever, they were told to try to complete as many pagesof instructional items as possible as they went along.The reasons for including this particular condition weretwofold: to provide a control for the effects of self-di-rected instruction alone and to equate the groups for thesocial suggestion that they work productively.

No treatment. A fourth group of children was ad-ministered the full set of assessment procedures withoutany intervening exposure to the instructional material.This group provided a control for any possible effectsof testing and concomitant classroom instruction.


Posttreatment Assessment

The procedures used in the pretreatment phase of thestudy were readministered on the day following com-pletion of the fourth session. This intermediate pointwas selected to gauge the effects of goal proximity onthe development of skill, self-efficacy, and intrinsic in-terest within an identical length of time. Had childrenbeen tested after completing the entire program of study,the posttreatment changes would have been confoundedby variations in the amount of time different childrenrequired to complete the self-instruction.

Children's mathematical self-efficacy was measuredat the end of treatment and after the posttest of sub-traction performance. The self-efficacy scores obtainedat the end of treatment were used to gauge the valueof self-efficacy judgment in predicting subsequent arith-metic performance. Since posttest performance can af-fect perceived efficacy, the measure of self-efficacy ob-tained following the arithmetic posttest was related tothe subsequent measure of intrinsic interest.

Each of the 25 pairs of efficacy assessment items,which were the same as those used in the pretreatmentassessment, corresponded in form and difficulty level toa subtraction problem in the performance test but in-volved different sets of numbers. As noted previously,most of the test problems were more complex than theones included in the treatment phase of the study. Be-cause the test of self-efficacy tapped new applicationsof cognitive operations, children had to rely on gener-alizable perceptions of their mathematical capabilitiesin making their efficacy judgments.

A parallel form of the performance test used in thepretest was devised for the posttreatment assessment ofmathematical competence. This eliminated any possibleeffects due to familiarity with problems. Both formswere administered in a counterbalanced order to a sam-ple of 17 children who were not participants in the for-mal study. The alternate forms yielded highly compa-rable scores (r = .87).

Children's intrinsic interest in subtraction problemswas measured in a separate session scheduled the dayafter the posttreatment assessment. The tester explainedthat she/he had another task the children could do.Their attention was then drawn to two stacks of 10 pageseach. One stack contained 60 subtraction problems ofvarying levels of difficulty; the other stack containedrows of digit-symbol problems adapted from the Wechs-ler Intelligence Scale for Children (Wechsler, 1974).The latter task involved filling in rows of empty squareswith symbols corresponding to the digits appearingabove each square.

The tester stressed that the children should feel freeto decide whether they wanted to work on one, or theother, or both tasks. It was further emphasized that itwas up to them to decide how much time they wantedto spend on each activity. The children worked aloneuntil 25 min. had elapsed. The number of subtractionproblems the children solved under these permissivechoice conditions constituted the measure of intrinsicinterest.

All of the assessment procedures were administeredindividually by the same tester in both phases of thestudy. To control for any possible bias, the testers had

no knowledge of the conditions to which the childrenhad been assigned.

After the experiment was concluded, all children, in-cluding the controls, pursued self-directed instructionto completion under proximal subgoals to provide max-imal benefits for all participants.

Results

No significant sex differences were foundon any of the measures at either the pretestor posttest assessments, since the sample wasconfined to children with gross arithmeticdeficits. In the posttest assessment, childrenshowed comparable gains in self-efficacy andarithmetic performance on generalizationproblems and on the types of items used inthe treatment phase. Having mastered par-ticular subtractive operations on simpler ex-emplars, children applied them accuratelyto more complex forms. The data were there-fore pooled across sex and class of item forthe primary analyses.

Analyses of variance were computed onthe different sets of data, with phases of theexperiment and treatment conditions rep-resenting the main factors. At the pretestphase, the groups did not differ on any ofthe measures. Significant intergroup differ-ences obtained in the posttreatment phasewere analyzed further, using the Newman-Keuls multiple-comparison method. Table1 shows the significance levels of the treat-ment effects, the changes achieved by chil-dren within each condition, and comparisonsbetween treatment conditions.

Perceived Self-Efficacy

The strength of children's perceived math-ematical efficacy at different phases of theexperiment is presented graphically in Fig-ure 1.

Analysis of these data shows the maineffect of treatment, F(3, 36) = 10.13, p <.001, and the interaction between treatmentand experimental phases, F(6, 72) = 5.96,p < .001, to be highly significant.

Intragroup comparisons of changes instrength of self-efficacy, evaluated by the ttest for correlated means, yielded no signif-icant differences for children in the controlgroup (Table 1). Those who had the benefitof proximal subgoals substantially increased


Table 1Significance of Intergroup Differences and Intragroup Changes

MeasureProximalvs. distal

Proximalvs. nogoals

Proximalvs.

control

Distalvs. nogoals

Distalvs.

controlNo goals

vs. control

Intergroup comparisons(Newman-Keuls comparisons)

Strength of Self-efficacy

Post, <.05 <.05 <.01 ns <.05Post2 <.01 <.05 <.01 ns <.05

Arithmeticperformance <.01 <.01 <.01 IM <.01

PersistenceEasy problems IM IM IM ns nsDifficult

problems ns ns <.05 IM <.05

Intrinsic interest <.05 <,05 <.05 ns ns

Accuracy ofSelf-Appraisal ofEfficacy <.05 <.05 <.05 iw ns

IM

<.01

<.01

ns

<.Q5

ns

ns

Intragroup changes0 tests)

NoProximal Distal Control

Strength of Self-efficacyPre vs. Post,Pre vs. Post2Posti vs. Post2

Arithmetic Performance

PersistenceEasy problemsDifficult problems

4.69***5.90****3.55***

12.62****

0.724.57***

2.93**2.15*2.75**

3.17***

0.261.41

2.16*3.70***1.18

4.27***

0.321.76

0.010.781.12

1.01

4.12***3.34***

* p< .10. ** p < .05. *** p < .01. "p< .001.

their perceived self-efficacy and exhibitedeven further gains following the performanceposttest. Children oriented toward distalgoals displayed a moderate increase in self-efficacy but a small decline after the posttest.Self-directed learning without goals pro-duced a modest increase at a borderline levelof significance.

In separate comparisons between treat-ments, the proximal group exceeded all oth-ers in strength of perceived self-efficacy, asmeasured both before and after the behav-

ioral posttest (Table 1). Children in the dis-tal condition also exceeded the controls inself-efficacy, but they did not differ signifi-cantly from those who set no goals for them-selves. Children in the latter condition judgedtheir mathematical efficacy more highlythan did the controls after but not before theperformance posttest.

Mathematical PerformanceFigure 1 presents the mean scores ob-

tained on the subtraction performance test


90

80

O 70

u.Ul

IL 60

•—• PROXIMAL GOALS•--• DISTAL GOALSo-o NO GOALS

h o—o CONTROL

50

30

PRETEST1 2POSTTEST

PRETEST POSTTEST

Figure 1. The left panel shows the strength of children's self-percepts of arithmetic efficacy at thebeginning of the study (pretest), and before (Posti) and after (Postz) they took the subtraction posttest.The right panel displays the children's level of achievement on the subtraction tests before and after theself-directed learning.

by children in the various conditions. Themain effect of treatment was highly signif-icant, F(3, 36) = 12.80, p < .001, as was theinteraction between treatment and experi-mental phases, F(3, 36) = 12.55, p < .001.

Self-directed instruction promoted mas-tery of subtractive operations in all threegroups, whereas the controls remained at aloss on how to subtract numbers from eachother (Table 1). In pairwise compari-sons, children who had employed proximalsubgoals surpassed all the other groups insubtractive skills. Children who engaged inself-directed learning either with distal or nogoals did not differ significantly from eachother, but both groups outperformed thecontrols.

In the above measure, children receivedpartial credit if they applied the appropriatesubtractive operations but made a minor er-ror in deriving or in recording the answer.The identical pattern of results is obtainedon scores using a stringent criterion requir-ing perfect accuracy on all counts. In com-paring the children's subtractive skills beforeand after treatment, all three groups thatengaged in self-directed instruction achievedsignificant gains beyond the p < .001 levelof significance; whereas the controls, who

solved only 5% of the problems in pretestand only 8% in posttest, remained grosslydeficient in this regard.

Contrasts between the means of the dif-ferent treatment conditions show the chil-dren in the proximal condition to be muchmore skilled than those in the distal (p <.01), no-goals (p< .01), or control (p < .01),conditions. Children who pursued the self-learning with distal (/?<.01) or no goals(p < .01) were also more skilled than thecontrols, but the former two groups did notdiffer from each other.

Persistence

Children who gain high self-efficacythrough skill acquisition solve problemsreadily and, therefore, need not spend muchtime on them. An aggregate measure of per-sistence spanning the entire range of diffi-culty is not too meaningful because long per-severence times on hard problems are offsetby rapid solutions of less difficult ones.Changes in persistence were, therefore, an-alyzed separately for problems at two levelsof difficulty: The difficult set of problemsrequired two or more borrowing operations,whereas the easier set involved either no bor-


rowing or, at most, only one smaller min-uend.

Analysis of persistence on the easy arith-metic items revealed no differences exceptfor the controls, who were significantly lesspersevering (-31%) when tested again.However, in the efforts expended on difficultarithmetic items, the proximal children weremarkedly more persistent after treatmentthan before (+90%), the distal (+22%) andthe no-goals children (+39%) were moder-ately more persistent, whereas the controlsslackened their efforts (-27%) in the post-test. This differential pattern of perseverenceyielded a highly significant Treatment XPhases interaction, F(3, 36) = 5.67, p <.005. Analyses of intragroup changes pre-sented in Table 1 show that the increasedperseverence of the proximally self-moti-vated children and the diminished effort ofthe controls are highly significant. Multiplecomparisons among groups in the posttestassessment disclose that children in each ofthe treatment conditions, although not dif-fering from each other, were all significantlymore persevering than were the controls(Table 1).

Intrinsic InterestThe role of goal proximity in the devel-

opment of intrinsic interest may be seen inFigure 2. Analysis of variance of the numberof subtraction problems that children choseto solve on their own yielded a significanttreatment effect, F(3, 36) = 3.57, p < .05.Inspection of Table 1 shows that children inthe proximal subgoal condition exceeded allthree comparison groups, which did not dif-fer from each other. Indeed, 90% of the chil-dren who developed their arithmetic skillthrough the aid of proximal subgoals per-formed subtraction problems under the free-choice conditions; whereas only about 40%of the children in the other groups did so.

The involvement in arithmetic problemsdisplayed by the proximal children was notat the detriment of the competing activity.Children in all groups performed a compa-rable number of digit-symbol items and didnot differ in this respect (F = 0.77). It wouldseem that experience with proximal self-mo-tivators enhances the total level of subse-

14

12

£ 10UJt-z

O 8

zcc

PROXIMAL DISTALGOALS GOALS

NOGOALS

CONTROL

Figure 2. Average number of subtraction problems chil-dren in the different conditions chose to solve when givenfree choice of activities.

quent productivity, since children in this con-dition were as prolific on the competing taskand more so on the arithmetic one.

Progress in Self-Directed LearningThe average length of time it took children

to complete each lesson was 21, 29, and 30min. for the proximal, distal, and no-goalsconditions, respectively. Thus, proximal self-motivators produced more rapid mastery ofthe subject matter than did distal ones, F(l,27) = 3.94, p < .10, or self-instruction with-out goals, F(l, 27) = 5.44, p < .05.

By the end of the four sessions, the per-centage of the total instructional materialcompleted was 74% in the proximal condi-tion, 55% in the distal condition, and 53%in the condition involving no goals. Althoughproximal subgoals, compared to distal goals,F(l, 27) = 3.66, p < .10, and no goals, F(l,27) = 4.67, p < .05, fostered greater masteryof subtractive operations, distal goals had nosignificant effect either on rate or level ofself-directed instruction.

Congruence Between Self-EfficacyJudgment and Performance

Congruence indices can be computed bycomparing efficacy judgments at the end of


treatment with subsequent posttest perfor-mance of subtraction problems of compa-rable form and difficulty. In this procedure,judgments of self-efficacy are dichotomizedinto positive and negative instances, basedon a selected cutoff strength value. Instancesof congruence occur when children judgedthemselves capable of solving a given levelof problem and, in fact, solved it or judgedthemselves incapable and then failed thesame class of problem. Mismatches betweenefficacy judgments and performances (i.e.,judged efficacy for failed items and judgedinefficacy for solved items) represent in-stances of incongruence.

Congruence indices were calculated sep-arately for efficacy cutoff values at differentlevels of strength. When a low-strength valueis selected as the criterion of self-judged ef-ficacy, a weak sense of efficacy (e.g., 20) istreated like complete certitude (100). Sucha low criterion could produce artifactualmismatches. If the criterion were set nearthe maximal strength value (80), reasonablyhigh levels of self-judged efficacy (e.g., 70)would be defined as inefficacy. This toowould produce artifactual discrepancies. Forthe mathematical performances examined inthis study, an efficacy strength of 40, whichreflects a moderate degree of assurance, pro-vided the optimal cutoff criterion.

Results of the congruence analysis dis-close that the conditions of treatment af-fected the level of accuracy with which chil-dren appraised their mathematical efficacy,F(3, 36) = 3.06, p < .05. Children in thedistal (54%), no-goals (51%), and control(60%) conditions displayed moderate con-gruence between their self-judged efficacyand their performance. In contrast, childrenwho developed their skills under proximalsubgoals were highly accurate in their self-appraisals of efficacy (80%). Table 1 showsthat in accurateness of self-appraisal, theproximally self-motivated children exceedother experimental groups, which do not dif-fer significantly from each other. In mostinstances the children erred by overestimat-ing their capabilities.

Correlational AnalysesCorrelational analyses were carried out to

provide additional information on the rela-

tionship between theoretically relevant vari-ables. Product-moment correlations werecalculated separately within groups, andwhen they did not differ significantly, theywere averaged by means of an r to z trans-formation.

That skill acquisition builds self-efficacyreceives support in the data. The more self-instructional material the children mastered,the stronger was their sense of mathematicalself-efficacy, r(28) = .42, /j<.01. Perfor-mances that are readily achieved suggest ahigher level of self-ability than do analogousattainments gained through slow, heavy la-bor. Consistent with this expectation, thefaster the children completed each lesson,the more efficacious they judged themselvesto be, r(28) = .32, /><.05. Standardizedmeasures of mathematical competence, basedon the Metropolitan Achievement Test, didnot predict rate of skill acquisition or degreeof self-efficacy enhancement.

Both instructional performance, r(28) =.33, p < .05, and strength of self-efficacy,K38) = .42,/><.01, were moderately relatedto the children's facility in using subtractiveoperations. However, strength of self-effi-cacy was a significant predictor of perfectarithmetic accuracy for the total sample,r(38) = .49, /x.OOl, and for the self-instructed groups, r(28) = .40, p < .025,whereas past self-instructional performancewas only marginally related to faultless post-test performance, r(28) = .25, p < .10.

Skill acquisition speeds problem solving.This factor attentuated the relationship be-tween self-efficacy and persistence for thetreated children who found most of the prob-lems readily soluble and, hence, had no needto spend much time on them. The influenceof perceived self-efficacy on perseverence is,of course, best revealed on problems thatcannot be solved however hard one tries.Children who doubt their capabilities quitsooner than those who believe they can even-tually master the task should they persevere.This condition obtains for the control chil-dren whose marked arithmetic deficienciesrendered most of the problems insoluble. Forthis group, the stronger the children's self-perceived efficacy, the longer they perse-vered, K8) = .63, p = .025. For all children,high perseverence was accompanied by high


performance attainments on the more dif-ficult problems, r(38) = .51, p < .001. Eventhe easy problems were exceedingly difficultfor the control children, and here too, per-sistence was related to performance success,K8) = .61, p < .001.

The relationship of perceived self-efficacyto intrinsic interest can be analyzed in sev-eral ways. It may require at least moderatelyhigh self-efficacy to generate and sustain in-terest in an activity, but interest is not muchaffected by small variations above or belowthe threshold level. To test this thresholdnotion, interest scores were correlated withnumber of self-percepts of efficacy thatmatched or exceeded an efficacy strength of40, which was previously shown to be theoptimal criterion in the congruence analysis.The results disclose that the higher the levelof self-efficacy at the end of the posttest, thegreater the interest shown in arithmetic ac-tivities, r(38) = .27, p < .05.

An alternative possibility is that intrinsicinterest is linearly related to strength of self-efficacy. Correlation of the latter measuresshows that variations in mean strength ofself-efficacy covaried with interest in thecontrol and the no-goals conditions, K18) =.39, p< .05, but not in the goal-setting treat-ments.

Although interest was positively relatedto self-percepts of efficacy derived from per-formance attainments in treatment, it wasuncorrelated with the performance attain-ments themselves. However, the standard-ized measures of competence in mathemat-ical subfunctions emerged as significantcorrelates. The more competent childrenwere at mathematical computation,H38) = .42, p < .01, and problem solving,K38) = .58, p < .001, the more subtractionproblems they completed in the free-choicesituation.

Discussion

Results of the present study confirm theinfluential role of proximal self-motivatorsin the cultivation of competence, self-per-cepts of efficacy, and intrinsic interest. Chil-dren who set themselves attainable subgoalsprogressed rapidly in self-directed learning,achieved substantial mastery of mathemat-

ical operations, and heightened their per-ceived self-efficacy and interest in activitiesthat initially held little attraction for them.

Efforts to clarify how goal proximity op-erates in self-regulatory mechanisms ordi-narily present difficulties because eventhough encouraged to set themselves distalgoals, people are prone to convert them intomore aidful proximal ones. They simplyfractionate desired future accomplishmentsinto attainable daily subgoals (Bandura &Simon, 1977). In the present experiment,children could not transform distal intoproximal self-motivators because not know-ing how to divide, they could not partitionthe entire instructional enterprise into equiv-alent subunits. Results of the combined stud-ies attest to the motivating potential of prox-imal goals, whether they are suggested orspontaneously generated, or whether theself-sustained behavior is tractable or verydifficult to produce.

Judgment of mathematical self-efficacyby children just beginning to understand therequisite cognitive skills is no simple matter.With very brief exposure to sample items,it is hard to discriminate among differentlevels of task difficulty. This is because thecomplexity of some of the subtractive op-erations is not instantly apparent from whatis most readily observable. When complexoperations are imbedded in seemingly easyproblems, which is often the case, appear-ances can be quite misleading. In such sit-uations, incongruities between perceived self-efficacy and action may stem from misper-ceptions of task demands as well as fromfaulty self-knowledge. Moreover, solvingproblems typically requires applying multi-ple operations. Even if they were readily rec-ognizable, judgment of personal capabilitiesfor a given type of task is complicated ifsome of the constituent operations are thor-oughly mastered and others are only par-tially understood. Selective attention to mas-tered elements highlights competencies;whereas focus on what is less well understoodhighlights shortcomings. Even equal atten-tiveness to all aspects of the task will producesome variance in judgments of self-efficacy,depending on how much weight is given tothe differentially mastered operations.

Given these complexities, it is not sur-


prising that children sometimes overesti-mated their capabilities, especially on tasksthat appeared deceptively simple. However,it is noteworthy that in addition to its otherbenefits, goal proximity fosters veridical self-knowledge of capabilities. Children whoguided and judged their progress in termsof proximal subgoals were highly accuratein their self-appraisals. In contrast, skill de-velopment under conditions in which prog-ress toward competence is somewhat ambig-uous does not improve self-knowledge.Despite the fact that children in the distaland no-goal conditions acquired new infor-mation about mathematics and applied itrepeatedly, the accurateness of their self-ap-praisals was no better than that of the con-trols, who did not have the benefit ofsubstantial performance information forconstructing their self-knowledge.

The above results are consistent with pre-vious findings that judgments of self-efficacyare not simply reflectors of past performance(Bandura, 1977a, 1977b). Rather they re-flect an inferential process in which the self-ability inferences drawn from one's perfor-mances vary, depending on how much weightis placed on personal and situational factorsthat can affect how well one performs. Theevaluative standards against which ongoingperformances are appraised constitute anadditional factor that determines how wellpeople judge their capabilities.

Results of microanalyses of congruencebetween self-efficacy judgment and perfor-mance indicate that the optimal cutoff valueof efficacy strength varies across activities,depending on the complexity and the varietyof skills they- require. Performances thatdraw on only a few skills reduce the likeli-hood of overestimating personal capabilitiesby overweighting a mastered subpart. Hence,lower efficacy strength values can be pre-dictive of success (Bandura, 1977a). In ac-tivities that depend on diverse subskills,knowledge of some of them, especially themore directly observable ones, raises thelevel of assurance that one might be able toperform successfully. Consequently, some-what higher cutoff values of efficacy strengthbecome predictive of success.

Research on intrinsic interest has centered

primarily on how extrinsic incentives affecthigh interest when it is already presentrather than on how to develop it when it islacking. It is the latter problem that presentsmajor challenges, especially when avoidanceof activities essential for self-developmentreflects antipathy arising from repeated fail-ure rather than mere disinterest. The presentfindings lend support to the general thesisthat skills cultivated through proximal stan-dards of competency build interest in dis-valued activities. When progress is gaugedagainst distal goals, similar accomplish-ments may prove disappointing because ofwide disparities between current perfor-mance and lofty future standards. Conse-quently, interest fails to develop, even thoughskills are being acquired in the process.

Perceived self-efficacy was accompaniedby high-performance attainments and per-severence under conditions in which such arelationship would be expected to obtain.Regardless of conditions of treatment, per-sistency increased the likelihood of success.There was some evidence to indicate thatfaultless arithmetic performance was betterpredicted from self-efficacy than from be-havioral attainments in treatment. However,caution should be exercised in judging causalcontributions from correlations because someof the measures reflect continuously inter-active processes rather than discrete sequen-tial ones. Consider, for example, the questionof directionality of influence in obtained re-lationships between treatment performance,posttreatment self-efficacy, and posttest per-formance. Self-efficacy judgments are un-confounded by future posttest performance,but it is highly unlikely that self-percepts ofefficacy played no role whatsoever in per-formance attainments during the self-di-rected learning. Judgments of one's capa-bilities can affect rate of skill acquisition,and performance mastery, in turn, can boostself-efficacy in a mutually enhancing pro-cess. It is not as though self-efficacy affectsfuture performances in the posttest but doesnot affect earlier performances in the treat-ment phase.

The causal contribution of perceived self-efficacy to performance is most clearly re-vealed in studies in which self-percepts of


efficacy are developed solely through vicar-ious or cognitive means that entail no overtperformance (Bandura & Adams, 1977;Bandura, Adams, & Beyer, 1977; Bandura,Adams, Hardy, & Howells, 1980; Bandura,Reese, & Adams, Note 1). Perceived self-efficacy, instated symbolically, predicts wellthe pattern of performance successes andfailures on specific tasks.

A further issue addressed in this researchconcerns the relationship between perceivedself-efficacy and intrinsic interest. It wasmainly children in the proximally self-mo-tivated condition, all of whom felt highlyefficacious, who displayed the notable levelof intrinsic interest. In contrast, children inthe other conditions generally expressed self-doubts concerning their capabilities andshowed little spontaneous interest in solvingarithmetic problems. Regardless of treat-ment conditions, self-percepts of moderateto high strength were positively related tointerest.

Intrinsic interest seems to covary mostclosely with the more long-standing indi-cants of actual or perceived competence, thatis, the standardized measures of competencein mathematical subfunctions and perceivedself-efficacy in groups whose preexistingself-percepts were either unaltered orchanged only marginally. These findingsraise the interesting possibility that sometemporal lag exists between newly acquiredself-efficacy and corresponding growth ofinterest. The link between boosts in per-ceived self-efficacy and sustained involve-ment in challenging activities is now wellestablished across a wide range of behavioraldomains (Bandura, 1981; Brown & Inouye,1978; Weinberg, Gould, & Jackson, 1979;Schunk, 1981; Condiotte & Lichtenstein, inpress). But it may require mastery experi-ences over a period of time before the self-efficacy derived from progressive successescreates strong interest in activities that weredisvalued or even disliked. If, in fact, effectsfollow such a temporal course, then in-creased interest would emerge as a laterrather than as an instant consequent of en-hanced self-efficacy. Because of the theoret-ical import of the link between self-efficacyand interest, both the threshold and the tem-

poral lag effects warrant systematic inves-tigation.

Reference Note1. Bandura, A., Reese, L., & Adams, N. E. Micro-

analysis of action and fear arousal as a function ofdifferential levels of perceived self-efficacy. Unpub-lished manuscript, Stanford University, 1981.

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Received June 16, 1980 •

proximal goals - bandura & schunk, 1981

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