Self-Efficacy

Over the past several decades, educators and educational psychologists have been interested in students' self-perceptions. This concerted attention to students' views of themselves is quite understandable. From the perspective of an educator, enhancing the positive self-perceptions of learners is an important educational goal. Educators desire students to become autonomous individuals who have strong and positive feelings about themselves as they engage in the myriad responsibilities and demands of school and life. Educational psychologists too have been interested in student self-perception, particularly as such perceptions may affect student motivation, persistence, and ultimately, classroom learning. The goal of the following discussion is to examine research and theory relating to learners' perceptions of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is a central construct in Albert Bandura's social-cognitive learning theory. It is defined as ...