Relation of self-efficacy expectations to academic achievement and persistence.

This study examined the relation of self-efficacy beliefs to subjects' persistence and success in pursuing science and engineering college majors. Subjects were 42 students who participated in a 10-week career-planning course on science and engineering fields. They completed several measures of self-efficacy , involving their perceived ability to fulfill the educational requirements and job duties of a variety of technical/sci entific occupations. Findings indicated that subjects reporting high self-efficacy for educational requirements generally achieved higher grades and persisted longer in technical/scientific majors over the following year than those with low self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was also moderately correlated with objective predictors of academic aptitude and achievement. Implications for the further extension of self-efficacy theory to educational and vocational behavior are discussed. Bandura (1977, 1982) has recently proposed a theoretical framework to explain and predict behavior change. Essentially, he has suggested that behavior changes achieved by diverse methods are mediated by a common cognitive mechanism. Self-efficacy expectations, meaning beliefs about one's ability to successfully perform a given task or behavior, are hypothesized to determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long effort will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Thus far, perceived self-efficacy has been studied in relation to a variety of clinical problems such as snake phobias (Bandura & Adams, 1977), social skills (Moe & Zeiss, 1982), and smoking cessation maintenance (DiClemente, 1981). Results have generally suggested that persons' efficacy expectations are useful in predicting behavior change independently of the different treatment approaches used. Recently, Hackett and Betz (1981) have extended self-efficacy theory to vocational behavior, hypothesizing that ex