Every time I tutor a kid in writing, I’ll get a comment along the lines of ‘I’m just not good at it’. In fact, I’ve worked with many adults who would say the same about their own writing skills. It’s a mental framework that tends to halt forward progress by assuming an invisible limit to our capabilities. Imagine it like this: You’re climbing a mountain. It’s foggy, it’s cold, it’s slippery. Up ahead, all you can see are the lights held by the people you’ve passed you. No sight of the peak, only sounds of movement around you as others trudge on forward. You think, there’s no way I’ll ever catch up, those people must already be at the peak. Or perhaps, I just don’t have the right equipment to go past here. I’ll fall. This is what we’d call low self-efficacy.
How is it any different from self-esteem? Well, if self-efficacy is a blind climb, self-esteem is like trying to sculpt your own face without a mirror. Both have the potential to surface insecurities, and both are important, but let’s focus on the one more suited towards helping children reach their educational goals, self-efficacy.
Let’s break this down:
Everyone has a certain Level of Aspiration, which is what they want to achieve (say, reaching the mountain peak), and this is not necessarily what they expect to (say, making it halfway up the mountain). In fact, our aspirations are usually far greater than our expectations.
Whenever we embark on a task, there are three evaluating factors that we use to measure our success:
Outcome Value, or the importance of the result of the task
Outcome Expectancy, or how effective it will be to reach this goal
Self-Efficacy Expectancy, or the assessment of likelihood to succeed
This final point is based on our self-perceived skills and past performance. So if we, perhaps, succeeded in a high-value goal (Like acing a test), then our expectancy increases. But if we failed at a high-value goal and succeeded at one we considered low-value (like getting a single answer right in an assignment), then that expectancy will go way down.
This is also where Outcome Expectancy comes into play: how much effort is the reward for this task worth? It often depends on what the motivation is; though often we rely on external praise and tangible rewards, there are some incredibly effective internal incentives, such as: Achievement Motivation, when we gain satisfaction from reaching our goals, feeling “successful” or Effectance Motivation, feeling good about simply exploring and learning for the sake of exploring and learning.
All this is perfectly fascinating, but what can we do about it, when it comes to education?
Well, the key lies in the Locus of Control. This is the belief that we can influence the outcomes through our behavior, rather than them being based on luck or external factors. That’s step one: we make sure kids understand that their efforts will make a difference.
Next is Mastery Orientation. That means assuming that our environment and personal behaviors are flexible and changeable. Nothing is set in stone. If a child wants to change, they can.
Finally, we take a look at the four main sources of Self-Efficacy information. In other words, this is what kids will look at when they’re deciding whether or not they can or can’t do something.
Performance Experiences: If I know a kid’s previous experiences with writing essays have been boring and the results underwhelming, I have to start building positive experiences for them to look back on in the future. I’ll give them brainstorming games, joke around, praise their hard work and point out their progress.
Vicarious Experiences: A single voice can become a chorus in an instant: if the whole class is moaning about the difficulty of the writing assignment, then success seems to drift further and further away. I like to tell kids about my wildest victories, when I didn’t expect them, or how I enjoy myself when given a boring subject to write about. If they see a path forward, they can start to climb that mountain.
Verbal Persuasion: This is what we can help with the most. All this talk of intrinsic motivation and learning for the sake of learning is all well and good, but a child likes to be told by an adult that they did the right thing. They rely on us for confirmation that they’re on the right track. We don’t want them to need it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t provide it to keep them going!
Emotional Arousal: Failing can be scary. Finishing further back than you wanted can be devastating. It’s important to normalize making mistakes, so they don’t pack such a heavy blow. They’re going to slip on their trek up the mountain, others may even laugh or zoom past. But it’s the people who get up and keep climbing regardless that will get the furthest. What’s more, the peak isn’t the only place they can feel joy! Milestones can bring just as much excitement and if they can find the fun in the climb itself? They’re practically set!
All these fancy terms and concepts come from James E. Maddux, and I encourage you to read his stuff if you want to go into further detail on the theory of Self-efficacy. My takeaway, however, is this:
Just as we want to teach kids to believe in their own abilities, we have to believe in ours too. The moment I realized that I really can affect and help the kids I tutor become better writers and more comfortable with the process of learning, my own self-efficacy increased. We lead by example just as much as by lecturing. Honestly, it’s not nearly as hard for a child to believe that they can do anything as it is to convince an adult. So let’s take advantage of that and give them as many positive experiences to look back on and rely on when they’re making their assessments in the future.
Credits:
Maddux, J. E. (2016). Self-efficacy. In Interpersonal and intrapersonal expectancies (pp. 41-46). Routledge.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191.
Education illustrations by Storyset