I Think I Can
The Importance of Self-Efficacy in Instruction
By Robert F. Mager

Some years ago I conducted a learning experiment in a boys' school in Italy. During lunch one day, one of the instructors told me a story about one of his boys. It seems that this boy, who was good at math, took a math test one day, and in answer to the question, "How much is ten divided by one?" wrote eight. When asked how he arrived at the answer, the boy replied, "Well, I knew the answer was ten, but our teachers always tell us that when you divide, the answer has to be smaller than the number you started with. So I figured if ten wasn't right, the answer must be nine."

"But you wrote down eight," said the puzzled teacher. "Why was that?"

"Well," replied the boy, sheepishly, "everybody always tells me how stupid I am. So I figured if I put down the right answer, they would think I was cheating."

In this case, the boy had a favorable attitude toward the subject described. What was missing was that he didn't believe he had the skill he actually did. He didn't feel confident enough in his skill to write what he knew to be the right answer.

That's how the concept of self-efficacy differs from the concept of attitude. While it is possible to have a favorable attitude toward a subject or activity, it is at the same time possible to believe that the subject-related skills are weaker or less developed than they actually are. And that causes people to hang back from something they would really like to do. It causes them not to persevere in the face of adverse circumstances.

What Is Self-Efficacy?
Self-efficacy refers to the judgments that people make about their abilities to execute particular courses of action - about their ability to do specific things. For example, "I know I can give a talk in front of large audiences." Self-efficacy isn't about the actual skills that people have; it's about the judgments people make about what they can do with those skills. People with low self-efficacy don't believe that they can do the things they actually can do. On the other hand, people with high self-efficacy usually make more realistic judgments about what they can do. When their skills in an area are strong, they judge them to be strong and are willing to act on that judgment.

Why Is Self-Efficacy Important?
The importance of strong self-efficacy cannot be overestimated. Dr. Albert Bandura said it best in "Organizational Applications of Social Cognitive Theory," an article published in the December 1988 issue of the Australian Journal of Management:

"People who have a strong belief in their capabilities think, feel, and behave differently from those who have doubts about their capabilities. People who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult tasks. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the goals they choose to pursue. Failure wrecks their motivation … They give up quickly in the face of difficulties and are slow to recover their confidence following failure or setbacks."

Note that it is possible to have high self-efficacy about a specific performance and, at the same time, expect that it will produce negative results. For example, "I know I can make a terrific sales presentation, but I also know I won't get the contract." Self-efficacy refers to judgments about performing a specific act, rather than to expectations about the consequences or outcomes of that act.

Why is Self-Efficacy Important to Instructors?
Because people with low self-efficacy are made, not born. Because the actions of instructors can make the difference between a willingness to try to apply what was learned and a tendency to quit. Because instructors can make their students less (or more) vulnerable to on-the-job conditions that aren't always supportive and can help them survive rejection and periodic failures.

How is Self-Efficacy Strengthened?
There are five types of things you can do to strengthen self-efficacy:

1. Ensure performance mastery. The most powerful way to strengthen self-efficacy regarding an ability to do something is to make sure students learn to do that thing well. But mastery is not enough, because mastery is just raw data. Unless students are also taught that the mastery is a result of their own efforts, they may leave you thinking things such as "The instructor helped me," or "I only did it right because of the job aid," or "I was just lucky." For performance to have a maximum effect, students must learn that they are the cause of the performance. Here's how:

• Arrange for enough independent practice so that mastery, as defined by course objectives, is achieved or surpassed.
• Break the learning into manageable chunks that have definite end points. That will increase the number of successes that the students can experience.
• Cast your feedback comments in terms of progress achieved, rather than in terms of learning yet to be accomplished.

  Right: "Your work shows fewer spelling errors today than it did yesterday."
  Wrong: "You've got a long way to go before your spelling will be good enough."

2. Model desired behavior. Here are some principles of modeling that can help you make modeling work for you rather than against you.

• Observers learn by watching and imitating others, so make sure that you model the behaviors that you want your students to emulate.
• Observers will be more likely to imitate a model who is similar to them. Make sure your students understand that the modeled behavior is due to the skill of the model, rather than to other factors.
• Observers will be more likely to imitate modeled performance when they observe the model being reinforced for that performance. In a similar vein, observers who see a model being punished will tend not to imitate the performance that was punished.

3. Use task-diagnostic feedback. We can interpret feedback in either self-diagnostic or task-diagnostic ways, and the way we do it will have an enormous (often life-long) effect on self-efficacy. Self-diagnostic feedback interprets less-than-perfect performance as a personal deficiency. "You just aren't motivated enough;" "Maybe you just don't have the talent for this work." Self-diagnostic feedback blames imperfect performance on failings of the individual.

   Task-diagnostic feedback focuses on the task being performed. Failure is used as information through which the performance may be improved, rather than as evidence of incompetence. "If you'll put your hand in this position rather than that one, I think you'll see some improvement;" "This error happened because at this point you added, instead of subtracting." Task-diagnostic feedback focuses on ways in which performance of a task may be improved. Here are some ways to strengthen self-efficacy through task-diagnostic feedback:

• Focus feedback comments on characteristics of the performance itself and on ways to improve the performance, rather than on student characteristics.
• Avoid deliberately making students fail in public. For students with low self-efficacy, public failure will be more destructive - not only to the performer, but to observers who also happen to be low on self-efficacy. For example, don't allow students to perform in front of an entire class until their skill and self-efficacy levels are high.
• Arrange for students to experience successes (e.g., mark the right answers rather than the wrong ones on a test or skill check). Relate student performance to progress toward achievement of the objective.
• Help students interpret their "failures" as being not-yet-competent performance. (As they begin learning a new skill, they are expected to make mistakes. If someone labels each and every imperfect practice attempt as another failure, their self-efficacy will suffer.)
• Provide students with clear-cut, near-term goals.
• Once a skill has been mastered, provide practice under a range of conditions, so that students can judge themselves competent to handle the actual situations they are likely to encounter.

4. Strengthen favorable attitude. Students who are favorably disposed toward the subject they are learning are more likely to develop subject-related skills. Because skill promotes high self-efficacy, instructors should focus on the development of a favorable attitude toward the target subject. Arrange for students to perform successfully, and then be sure to help them interpret their achievements as evidence of increasing capability. For example, "You can see that as a result of your own efforts, you can do that faster (or better) than you'll ever be expected to do it on the job."
   
   
5. Interpret physiological information. People tend to make inferences about their ability from physiological cues such as aches, pain, effort, etc. If something is difficult to do, they may very well conclude that they don't have the ability to do it. Your job is to help them understand that the difficulty of accomplishing something is not necessarily related to their ability to accomplish it. After all, lots of things require effort - learning to play a musical instrument, becoming any kind of a skilled professional, and so on. If students are allowed to conclude that the difficulty of the task defines their ability to learn it, they will lose many opportunities to master what might become highly enjoyable and/or useful skills. What to do?

• Make sure that students do not interpret physiological cues that signify effort (i.e., cues that say, "Hey, there's some hard work going on here!") as a lack of ability.
• Model (demonstrate) finding pleasure in the hard work; e.g., aerobics class instructors who say, "Wow, this is tough," while laughing, smiling, and doing more.
• If experiencing pain, discomfort, or difficulty at a certain point in the learning is normal or a sign of progress (e.g., "no pain, no gain"), say so to the students.

It is critical that the judgments that students make about their ability to perform specific tasks come close to matching the true level of their skills. With high self-efficacy, students will be more likely to try and to persevere in the face of obstacles and occasional failures. It's worth doing all you can to help your students achieve the exhilarating state of high self-efficacy.

Self-Efficacy Checklist
When you want to find out if your self-efficacy strengthening practices are on track, you may want to use the Self-Efficacy Checklist as a guide. It includes items specifically relating to improvement of self-efficacy and will help you spot opportunities for improvement.

Excerpted from Robert F. Mager's How to Turn Learners On… without turning them off, 3rd Edition (List Price $22.95, 152 pgs., 1-879618-18-4, CEP Press, 1997) and Making Instruction Work, 2nd Edition (List Price $22.95, 286 pgs., 1-879618-02-8, CEP Press, 1997). For more information on Bob Mager, click here.