Literature Review
Investigating the relationship between self-efficacy and academic success

Cheng Zhang

PSY 301 LAB
Jason Wallin
23/10/2013

Literature Review: Investigating the relationship between self-efficacy and academic success
During the past decades, the importance of self-efficacy has been receiving much attention from many scholars from a variety of research fields such as psychology and education. Scholars want to find the relationship of self-efficacy and the outcome of academic performance. According to the self-efficacy theory proposed by Bandura in the late 1970s, self-efficacy is the individual’s perceived capability to perform a given duty successfully (Bandura, 1977). As Bandura stated in a more recent article, the belief that a person possesses the power to generate expected effects by his or her actions is the fundamental basis of any factors that serve as guides and motivators. Without such a belief, it is quite hard for a person to find sufficient incentive to take actions or overcome difficulties (Bandura, 2002, p. 2). Pajaresand Schunk(2001) summarized that Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasizes the important role of self-efficacy belief in the process where individuals make decisions and ultimately take actions to pursue their goals. Alternatively speaking, it is more likely for people to engage in activities when they feel confident and have competence than those that they do not. Meanwhile, according to Hackett and Betz (1981), expectations of personal efficacy play an essentially important role in individual’s career decisions and achievements. Especially, it has remarkable significance in understanding the career development for females. In particular, as Hackett and Betz suggested, efficacy beliefs has close association with individuals’ perceived career choices and also the persistence of pursuing success in the career fields that they have chosen.
Such a perspective has been extensively supported by findings of the close relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and a variety of indices of career choice behaviors including expressed interests, occupational preferences and perceived options (e.g. Wheeler, 1983). At the meantime, students’ academic performance is always much concerned by parents, teachers, educational researchers and people from many other fields. Regarding this and also the remarkable significance of self-efficacy in individuals’ success and achievement, an interesting research question could be “what is the relationship between self-efficacy and academic success”? In fact, there has been a huge body of relevant studies during the past years. Many researchers have proposed self-efficacy as one imperative component of good academic performance. Based on the review of previous findings during the last decades, it is hypothesized here that self-efficacy has a significantly positive relationship with academic success. To be more specific, individuals who have a higher level of self-efficacy has better academic performance and is more likely to achieve academic success. Many researchers have provided consistent practical evidence for this positive relationship.
First of all, in an early empirical study conducted by Lent, Brown, and Larkin (1986), researcher investigated the kind of relationship among self-efficacy, educational/vocational behavior, and educational/vocational voice. The study recruited one hundred and five participants, including male and female who had enrolled in either of the two career planning training. The participants were fresh college students taking engineering majors in science. During the study, participants completed the self-efficacy measure, including self-esteem, career indecision, and expressed behavioral interests in the first and last class sessions. The educational requirement scale and other newer methods were used in this study. The students indicating if they could complete the course successfully assessed self-efficacy. To measure the career indecision, the career decision scale was employed and the self-esteem scale was used to measure self-esteem. Results of the analysis of variance showed that there was no significant interaction between men and women self-efficacy beliefs, no difference on course sections, and self-efficacy was not subject to time. Correlations were calculated to assess the relationship among vocational interest, self-efficacy, and the known predictors of success. Therefore, these results suggested that academic performance is significantly correlated to efficacy expectations even though it does not bring out a unique contribution of self-efficacy to determining academic success. Meanwhile, Zimmerman (1996) carried out an investigation of how students’ self-regulation processes including self-efficacy beliefs can affect their self-motivation and academic success substantially. They found that the development of self-regulatory processes played a significant role in students’ academic success and also pointed out that deficiency in self-regulation had become a serious problem for students. Therefore, they proposed to apply self-regulation intervention plans to students and so that students could be provided with strategic skills and essential skills about goal setting and self-monitoring. Finally, students’ academic motivation could be promoted and it could be more likely for them to achieve academic success.
Moreover, in a more recent study, Chemers, Hu, and Garcia (2001) also investigated the effects of optimism and self-efficacy on students’ performance. In this study, participants were first-year students in the University of California. All students were given questionnaires at the beginning of the semester and twenty three percent of the students responded. Questionnaires were administered to the students who responded in the first round and268out of the 372 responded. To measure the academic self-efficacy, rating scales were used and the high school scores were retrieved from the university records. Results showed that self-efficacy played an important role in students’ academic performance and adjustment to college life. To be more specific, students with higher self-confidence while entering college were likely to perform better than those with a lower level of self-confidence.
Furthermore, many studies also found the mediating effect of self-efficacy in the influence of other factors that can predict academic success, e.g. mental ability on academic achievement and previous achievement (Pajares & Schunk, 2001). For instance, in the study conducted by Solberg and Villarreal (1997), a significant correlation between academic self-efficacy and perceived college stress was found and both of them had remarkable effects on academic success for immigrant and minority students. In addition, self-efficacy is found to be the strongest predictor of students’ GPA while checking the academic success model and its strong predictions persists while controlling at academic performance of high school and demographic variables such as age and gender (Solberg & Villarreal, 1997). Therefore, the two researchers argue that development of a sense of self-efficacy has remarkable influence on students’ GPAs and thereafter can promote persistence rates of students in the college.
In a recent study (Vuong, Brown-Welty,&Tracz, 2010), researchers performed analysis on how self-efficacy influenced academic success of first-generation second-year college students. More than 1000 students coming from five universities in the area of California State participated in this study. Researchers distributed the College Self-Efficacy Inventory online to assess the self-efficacy level of participants. The investigation covered four aspects, among which the most important one was to explore how self-efficacy scores were related to academic success (i.e. GPA in this study) and persistence rates. Results showed that self-efficacy beliefs had significant effect on GPA and persistence rates for second-year college students. In particular, how second-year college students perceive about their capabilities of study significantly affect their academic performance of maintaining a good grade point average as well as the likelihood that they would choose to continue with their chosen program of study in that university. Researchers pointed out in the discussion that their findings are highly consistent with previous research studies that find a positive relationship between academic self-efficacy and GPA and persistence rates (e.g. Pajares&Schunk, 2001).
To conclude, through the above review of the existing literature, a large amount of empirical evidence consistently supports our hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance. In particular, it supports that students with a higher level of self-efficacy is more likely to have good academic performance and achieve academic success, highlighting the significant role of self-efficacy in academic activities.

Reference
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
Bandura, A. (2002). Social cognitive theory in cultural context. Journal of Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51,269-290.
Chemers, M. M., Hu, L., & Garcia, B. F. (2001), academic self-efficacy and first year college student performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1), 55-64. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.93.1.55
Hackett, G., & Betz, N. E., (1981).A self-efficacy approach to the career development of women.Journal of Vocational Behavior, 18, 326-339.
Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D.,&Larkin, K. C. (1986).Self-efficacy in the prediction of academic performance and perceived career options. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33(3), 265-269.doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.33.3.265
Pajares, F., &Schunk, H. D. (2001). Self-beliefs and school success: Self-efficacy, self-concept, and school achievement. In R. Riding & S. Rayner (Eds.), Perception (pp. 239-266). London: Ablex.
Schunk, D. H. (1989).Self-efficacy and achievement behaviors. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 173-208.
Solberg, V. S., & Villarreal, P. (1997).Examination of self-efficacy, social support, and stress as predictors of psychological and physical distress among Hispanic college students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 19(2), 182-201.
Vuong, M., Brown-Welty, S., &Tracz, S. (2010).The effects of self-efficacy on academic success of first-generation college sophomore students. Journal of College Student Development, 51(1), 50-64.
Wheeler, K. G. (1983). Comparisons of self-efficacy and expectancy models of occupational preferences for college males and females. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 56, 73-78.
Zimmerman, B. J. (1996). Enhancing Student Academic and Health Functioning: A Self-Regulatory Perspective. School Psychology Quarterly, 11(1),47-66.