Intentional learning with technological proxies: Goal orientations and efficacy beliefs

Digital technologies serve as an important educational resource for tertiary students. A key feature of many current digital technologies available to students is that they can function as proxies in the learning process; that is, technology can be used to carry out some academic-related tasks on behalf of the user. For tertiary educators, the widespread availability of technological proxies raises a number of important pedagogical issues. In this article, we discuss technological proxy in the context of intentional learning. Drawing from the literature on learner motivation, we identify three key variables – learners’ achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy beliefs, and proxy efficacy beliefs – and advance a set of propositions about how relationships between these variables may shape students’ use of technology as intentional learners. A key goal of this article is to expand current thinking around the ways in which tertiary learners’ efficacy beliefs relate to working with digital technology and, ultimately, their learning and performance outcomes.