This week focused on self-efficacy, confidence, and hard work, and how these factors influence students’ success in learning. I think the ideas of social cognitive theory and self-efficacy is nicely summed up in Pajares (2006) statement that “In this social cognitive perspective, individuals are viewed as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating rather than as reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces or driven by concealed inner impulses. Human thought and human action are viewed as the product of a dynamic interplay of personal, behavioral, and environmental influences” (p. 340). I think that this is a great summary of the things we have learned in this class: the behaviorist theory believes that students are “reactive organisms,” and that there are “concealed inner impulses,” such as the ones we witnessed in our IAT tests, with which constructivism would disagree. We can also see the constructivist tenets of personal and environmental (or social) influences, and how individuals organize meaning for themselves. We can even see bits from the Information Processing metaphor in this statement, with the self-regulating forces we learned about with memory, retrieval, and executive processes. What a great summary statement to help us wrap our minds around these robust theories and how they are all connected!
Self-efficacy is an important topic in learning, as our authors from this week point out. It can be just as much of a factor in learning and success as that of actual ability. Pajares (2006) explains how important these beliefs can be, and gives helpful tips for how teachers can get their students to have high beliefs in themselves. I particularly like the idea that teachers should “Praise effort and persistence, not ability” (Pajares, 2006, p.350). I think this plays in nicely with Dweck’s (2006) idea of the growth mindset, as well as Gladwell’s (2008) insistence on the importance of hard work. For Dweck, great teachers and coaches should have a growth mindset, where they believe that people’s talents and abilities can grow and improve with work, rather than a fixed mindset, where these talents are within us from birth, and one can never exceed the set capacity. Teachers and coaches should strive to imprint these ideas onto their students, as well, so that the students believe they can improve and do not get stuck in a mindset where they can never do any better and they might as well not try. Gladwell believes success can hinge on hard work and a good attitude. I was really struck by the TIMSS exam and how students’ exam rankings were exactly the same as the ranking they received for how many questions they filled out in the pre-exam questionnaire. That is a great example to show how hard work and persistence really does pay off in students’ success.
I have seen firsthand how low self-efficacy beliefs can negatively impact people in school or work. Many of my classmates from high school just believed that they were not capable of completing their schoolwork. Most did not even try for fear of failure, or they celebrated their failure and high-fived over who had the lowest test score. I had grown up with these people, and I knew that they were capable of much more than what they were doing. Instead, they seemed afraid of hard work and afraid of failure. I also see this at my job, especially with technology. When posed with a problem to solve or a new program to learn, some people simply say “I’m not any good at technology, I won’t be able to do that,” when I know that they could if they put in the effort to try it. I appreciate the tips that Dweck and Pajares lay out in their articles, and I look forward to putting in the effort to incorporate those into my teaching and training.
References:
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Pajares, F. (2006). Self-efficacy beliefs during adolescence: Implications for teachers and parents. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Adolescence and education, Vol. 5: Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (pp. 339-367). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
