Abstract

Self-efficacy has been in research for a while now. It has been analyzed from the perspective of psychology, cognitive science, and management principles. Self-efficacy is defined as a person confidence in using his/her skills, thinking, cognitive resources in executing a task aimed to achieve the desired goal. Self-efficacy has an influence on a person thinking, on analysis of how to use cognitive resources and in making desired goals. It is seen that high self-efficacy makes a person confident, motivated and take up challenges in a tactful manner. High efficacy yields better performances. Thus, it is necessary that self-efficacy development classes be given to students so as to make a better individuals.

Introduction

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is the person’s ability to judge their capabilities in organizing and exercising various courses of actions taken to reach the desired place or attain the desired performance. It reflects a person’s confidence in using his or her abilities in motivating, utilizing conative resources and executing an action to execute a task. Thus, it is one’s belief in capabilities and organizing them in an appropriate manner to attain the desired goal. Self-efficacy can also be understood from the social cognitive perspective as a mediator in between social experiences, behaviour, and personal thinking. It is the fundamental mechanism that defines human behaviour. Self-efficacy makes a person hold to his /her beliefs in executing a work. It allows them to set more challenging objectives for themselves. It helps them to persist longer and deal better in the tough times (Mickelson, 1990). A highly efficacious person is thus expected to make better utilization of the resources, environment and deal with the situations in challenging scenarios. Such persons also are able to solve difficult situations properly and fight to their best abilities to reach the desired set goals.

HI5003 Economics for Business

Impact on human functioning

Self–efficacy behaviour helps in producing impacts with the utilization of cognitive process, motivational process, non-physical process and selection process. Human goals setting is highly influenced through self-assessment and appraisal of human capabilities. Thus, it is self-efficacy that helps an individual to make choices and take up for particular tasks. An individual carries a future analysis of positive and negative factors on the basis of his/her self-capabilities defines a goal to be achieved (Turner et al., 2009). Thus, self-efficacy affects the human cognitive process. Self-efficacy also has an impact on the motivational process of a human being as motivation is again cognitively generated. Self-efficacy affects how much a person can put effort into a task and how long that effort can be sustained (Elliot et al., 2005). It includes the way a person thinks of his /her abilities and thus makes them either continue the task or quit it. Other factors like stress, anxiety, and depression are also influenced by self-efficacy as it is the way a person perceives his/her self-efficacy in dealing with any challenges. Self-efficacy also has an influence on the way a person interacts with their environment and make a decision based on environmental factors. Thus overall self-efficacy influences overall human thinking, behaviour and social interaction (Turner et al., 2009).

Literature review

Over the years, many types of research have been carried out to understand the concept of self-efficacy. The starting of this concept is associated with the works of psychologist Albert Bandura. He gave the theory of self-efficacy. According to the concept, self-efficacy comes as a part of the social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory includes social psychology and behaviourism and gives emphasis to social learning thus understanding an individual behavior within a given social context and relationships (Bandura, 1986). A multi-dimensional model of human cognition, environmental factors, and human behaviour were developed by Bandura. Self-efficacy thus is one factor that acts as a mediator in balancing the individual’s thinking, behaviour, and social experiences. Thus according to Bandura what a person thinks, believes in and feel impacts on how they behave in the society and self-efficacy underpins human behaviour (Bandura, 1991).

Literature Review

According to (Bandura, 1986). Self-efficacy originates from following sources:

1. Through experiences: experiences gained in overcoming challenges through consistent efforts and beliefs develop self-efficacy ((Bandura, 1989).
2. Through modeling: social models which reflect stories of persons who succeeded in similar situations provide teaching skills transfer of knowledge and social beliefs. A person relates to such models and these similarities help the person to make a strong belief and thus self-efficacy.
3. Through verbal persuasion which helps in overcoming an individual’s self-doubts
4. Self-analysis of physical factors: a self-analysis of physical factors like stress, depression, mood etc. helps in understanding oneself and thus helps in influencing their self-efficacy (Bandura, 1991).

How self-efficacy effects human has always been a point of research over the years. A research carried out by Australian researchers aimed at studying the relationship between human attitude and academic achievement.  The study explored the relationship between student’s attitude and the effort they put into studying the subject of mathematics. The research used a survey based on questionnaire wherein 56 secondary school students were asked questions related to their attitude and the effort they gave into the subject of mathematics.  On the basis of this quantitative analysis, the results concluded that the attitude towards mathematics was associated with the effort the students would spend on the subject (Hemmings and Kay, 2010).

Another literature conducted in Spain (Valle et al., 2009) aimed at studying the relationship between students’ self-efficacy and their effort in case of performance and learning in the university. The research concluded that students who possess high self-efficacy are more likely to put more effort into their studies (Valle et al., 2009).

Thus, on combining both above research one can state that student attitude is associated with the effort given to the student for his/her performance and the effort is going to be more or higher if the student has high self-efficacy.

4IB004 Business in a Global Context

In another research aimed at examining the relationship between self-efficacy, job satisfaction and work engagement of a person in an organization. The research used a survey-based analysis to understand the relationship between public accountants’ job satisfaction, work engagement, and self-efficacy. The research used hypothesized model which was based on early research statements that general self-efficacy has a direct impact on job satisfaction as it helps in success on the job because persons which high efficacy are able to take upon the challenges effectively, are motivated and thus are likely to achieve outcomes through their persistent efforts. This thus helps them to achieve job satisfaction. The research made use of a self-efficacy scale, Minnesota job satisfaction scale and a work engagement scale and measured the opinions of accountants through a survey. A regression and correlation analysis was carried out. The results of the research indicated that self-efficacy highly affects job satisfaction and work engagement also affects job satisfaction. A highly self–efficient person is more likely to have a high degree of job satisfaction. Intrinsic job satisfaction is due to persons focused efforts and work engagement is an emotional factor affected by focused effort. The effort is behaviour and depends on cognitive behaviour, self-confidence and thus self-efficacy (Mustafa & Edril, 2012).

In another study related to self-efficacy (Strelnieks, 2005) it was found that self-efficacy has an influence on academic achievements but academic achievement also depends simultaneously on factors like gender and social-economic status. Though the research gives a useful finding that self-efficacy has an impact on academic achievement

From the above literature, it can be thus proved that self-efficacy helps in building up positive human behaviour. It helps an individual to utilize his/her cognitive skills, resources and environmental situations in performing and attaching an objective. Self-efficacy also impacts on individual effort given in any task. High efficient persons give more effort and are persistent in their actions to attain a goal. Self-efficacy defines an individual attitude such as self-confidence, emotional stability, persistence etc. these behaviours keep the individual motivated. Efforts and engagement towards work along with self-efficacy helps the person to achieve the set desired goals.

Roles Responsibilities and Boundaries of a Teacher

Conclusion

Self-efficacy is one’s ability to judge their key skills which help them to organize and exercise various courses of action to achieve the set goals. It has an influence on a person’s attitude, motivation, cognitive behaviour and thinking. It also influences how a person interacts in a social context. It helps an individual to have self-assessment and thus, an individual can exercise self-management. Self-efficacy is also related to positive performance outcomes. It should be taught in the school as it shall help the students to carry self-management of them and influence their individual behaviors. Thus, it is highly necessary to educate and learn more about self-efficacy. It is needed to understand how some behaviours can help in enhancing self-efficacy. Such models can be used as training in imparting this new skill which can be beneficial for organizations and for an overall human being.

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44, 1175-1184.

Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 248-287.

Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, 117-148.

Elliot, J.G., Hufton, N.R., Willis, W., and Illushin, L., (2005). Motivation, engagement and educational performance. Britain: Palgrave.

Hemmings, B. and Kay, R., (2010). Prior achievement, effort, and mathematics attitude as predictors of current achievement. The Australian Educational Researcher, 37 (2), 41-58.

Mickelson, R.A., (1990). The attitude-achievement paradox among black adolescents. Sociology of Education, 63 (1), 44-61

Mustafa, Y & Edril, O.(2012). Relationships Between Self-Efficacy and Work Engagement and the Effects on Job Satisfaction: A Survey on Certified Public Accountants. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 58 (2012) 370 – 378.

Strelnieks, M., (2005). The relationship of students’ domain-specific self-concepts and self-efficacy to academic performance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Marquette University, Wisconsin

Turner, E.A., Chandler, M., and Heffer, R.W., (2009). The influence of parenting styles, achievement motivation and self-efficacy on academic performance in college students. Journal of College Student Development, 50 (3), 337-346.

Valle, A., et al., (2009). Academic goals and learning quality in higher education students. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 12 (1), 96-105