5 Ways to Contribute to Student Self-efficacy in Your Courses
The Student Experience Project is a fantastic, highly curated and interconnected repository for higher education. Here it demonstrates how self-efficacy is linked (figuratively and literally) to other constructs in teaching and learning. We encourage readers to explore the many side streets within this resource!
Understanding how to support students’ feelings of self-efficacy is important because when students have developed self-efficacy in a course, they show greater motivation and better performance (Bandura & Locke, 2003). Past research has demonstrated the critical role of self-efficacy for these key outcomes in STEM domains and for groups who have been traditionally viewed as being less interested, confident, or successful in STEM (e.g., women; Pajares, 2005). While self-efficacy is important to attend to, it can also feel like one of the more difficult aspects of the student experience to support. That is because students’ feelings of self-efficacy are often informed by multiple factors outside of instructors’ control. For example, when students participating in SEP courses are asked to explain the way that they respond to self-efficacy questions in our surveys, they commonly cite performance in past courses, mental health challenges, and responsibilities outside of school as factors that contribute significantly to their feelings of self-efficacy in their current courses. With so many outside factors impacting students’ feelings of self-efficacy, it’s reasonable to wonder – how much can instructors really do?