Meeting Students Halfway: Increasing Self-efficacy and Promoting Knowledge Change in Astronomy
We especially enjoy the excerpts from instructor interviews put into context. Read this article for a better idea of how self-efficacy is studied in college classrooms and how instructors’ choices can support – and sometimes undermine – self-efficacy.
[T]here were some notable differences between the two instructors… who saw significant increases in student self-efficacy for course tasks scores and the other three instructors…. The differences identified directly relate to the main factors theorized to impact self-efficacy. All of the instructors indicated that they tried to encourage and motivate students with their words in addition to providing opportunities to have mastery experiences with the course content. However, the degree of mastery experiences, type of verbal persuasion provided, and the opportunities students had for vicarious experiences of success seemed to differ. This difference may have, in turn, accounted for the variation in self-efficacy for course tasks between the instructors’ classes.