How Self Effectiveness Can Be Defined in The Social Cognitive Theory in Bandura

In his social cognitive theory, Bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as the belief in one’s ability to perform and organize a task in a way that is seen to be successful. Self-efficacy is seen as a vital education-psychological factor and determines individuals’ aspirations, behavior, and effort over time. Students with high self-efficacy in performing a task have been observed to persist longer even when they encounter challenges, they participate in school activities, show hard work, and achieve at higher levels. Bandura also states that self-efficacy affects one’s behavior, feelings, motivation, thinking, and how one performs various tasks.

However, it is important to note that self-efficacy differs from other self-beliefs like self-esteem. Self-efficacy is different in that it is specific on tasks and domain of the task. Self-efficacy is also not a self-belief in unknown tasks but a strong belief in one’s self in performing well-known tasks effectively and successfully. One can be confident in performing a set of mathematical series of questions, which he has been taught about. It is not merely a belief but a collection of experience in tackling a type of questions or problems, which one is confident in doing.

Self-efficacy is believed to originate from four sources; mastery experiences, verbal persuasion, vicarious experiences, and emotional and physiological reactions (Chen and Zimmerman, 2007). All these are important in the development of a strong self-efficacy and are explained in the following paragraphs.

According to Bandura (1997), mastery experience is the main source of self-efficacy. The success of an individual in a task boosts his or her confidence in performing that task which boosts one’s self-efficacy. Experience gives one evidence of the most essential things to master in a certain field in order to succeed. After mastery of such information, one’s self-efficacy increases tremendously and one is always confident that he can tackle the related problems accurately and succeed (Pearson, 2009). Bandura also unveils that continued success in a subject improves self-efficacy greatly while continued failure weakens self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1997), mastery of experience becomes powerful when one is able to excel in challenging tasks or if he is able to overcome any challenges and barriers. Mastery of experience is also an effective source of self-efficacy because it involves both the direct actions of an individual and the conscious thoughts, which together give a more generalized and stronger individual in giving the expected results. Student failure after putting in more efforts to succeed undermines one’s self-efficacy. It makes one lose belief in themselves. On the same note, one’s success after a series of help from peers and teachers makes one feel weak in dealing with the problem alone. It gives one first hand evidence that one can perform a certain task or even improve skills application and give better results (Usher and Pajares, 2009). This is basically because an individual will easily apply previously used skills or apply them with some improvements to enhance the outcomes. This therefore presents a more confident individual in tackling even complicated problems. The confidence and self-efficacy gained from experiences makes one confident in tackling situations that are even more difficult or situations at higher levels. Bandura (1977; 2004), states that once one’s confidence is built from successes, any future failures will not alter his self-efficacy (Aitch, 2011).

Another important source of self-efficacy is vicarious experience. It involves the observation of similar social and experimental models. Observing someone succeed in a difficult thing through perseverance makes the learners gain confidence that they can also succeed through perseverance. Through this, the observer gains self-efficacy as he combines new ideas of how to solve the problem with his own and therefore becomes better. As an example, observing a fellow student succeeding in a difficult problem will definitely convince other students that they also have the same potential to succeed (Linke, 2010). He further adds that the ways of thinking of the models and the behavior they exhibit are the fundamental things that teach observers strategies and skills of managing such situations in real time. Through this, they become equipped with the necessary tools to execute and solve any problem or situation. This also helps observers to know multiple ways of handling any upcoming environmental demand while they are applying their knowledge and skills when solving problems. According to Bandura (1997), vicarious experiences become important when one is not sure of their capabilities or has less experience from which to draw evaluation or interpretation (Phan, 2012). According to Schunk, the copying model where students struggle with problems until they get to solutions is better models to boost confidence than the mastery model where those who make mistakes respond like they did not make them. The whole observation process depends on the observer’s thoughts and they are the determinant of salient success in acquisition of self-efficacy or failure. Use of vicarious experiences requires continued modelling and in different environments in order to deliver the best outcomes. Vicarious experiences are very effective in boosting self-efficacy in activities that the observer views to be threatening or aversive. Performance of the activity by an expert gives the observer the confidence and can also help one to gain new skills of managing the activity (Linke, 2010).

Verbal persuasion is also another source of self-efficacy and involves use of social and verbal cues to strengthen one’s ability to perform a task. According to Bandura (1997), use of verbal encouragement and congratulations could largely improve one’s self-efficacy in solving a task he has not been successful to accomplish. Although verbal persuasion alone may not be effective in improving one’s self-efficacy, it is an important ingredient and helps one to initiate self-change which could guarantee success in accomplishing a task. However, the appraisal needs to be positive and is said at the right moment and towards a realistic situation. Verbally encouraging one that he can succeed in a particular activity helps him to focus more and put more effort in an activity (Margolis and McCabe, 2003). Such encouragements also reduce self-doubts and help one to focus on reducing self-deficiencies when solving problems. Bandura also states that verbal persuasion needs to go hand in hand with performance of the task so that every time one does it right, the encouragement will boost his or her self-efficacy. Continued use of these two techniques with successful performance ensures that one’s self-efficacy is increased and one has confidence in himself or herself. Use of verbal persuasion builds strong beliefs in someone and either makes one to give up in performing the activities or puts in more efforts in performing the activity (Schunk, 1995). Encouragements from peers and teachers whom students trust can boost students’ belief in themselves and in performing school tasks. During skill acquisition, students depend on others and teachers to provide evaluative feedback and encouragement on whether they can manage or not. Encouragement serves to boost one’s confidence and effort in academic work. This is more effective when the encouragement has instructions and conditions that help to bring success.

Another important source of self-efficacy is physiological and emotional reactions. In this case, individuals increase their self-efficacy by assessing the levels of stress, mood states, anxiety, arousal, and fatigue. The emotional experience one exhibits when tackling a task determines a person’s self-efficacy levels in tackling that task. According to Pajares (2002), positive thoughts improve self-efficacy largely while negative thoughts and fear reduces self-efficacy. Apart from thoughts, affect and physiological states also affect ones self-efficacy. These sources of self-efficacy are mediated by cognitive processing which determines whether to improve or reduce perceived self-efficacy. From this explanation, it is clear that experiences, and the current circumstances and setting determine self-efficacy as they affect cognitive processing. Although physiological and emotional states are the poorest in improving self-efficacy, Bandura (1977) states that emotions such as fear can be very detrimental to an individuals’ self-efficacy because it discourages one from participating in an activity if he is failing in performing a certain task. Lack of participation in a task eventually causes one to loose skills and interest in doing a task, which leads to failure and thus low self-efficacy (Velez, 2008). The presence of emotional and physiological states in an individual can have different effects to one’s self-efficacy depending on how one interprets and perceives their presence. As an example, the presence of fear in individual can help him to prepare better for an activity rather than withdrawing from it. It is therefore important that an individual has positive attitudes towards such emotions and turn them into strengths rather than weaknesses (Ballo-allo, 2011).