Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation.

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that self-motivation through proximal goal setting serves as an effective mechanism for cultivating competencies, self-percepts of efficacy, and intrinsic interest.Children who exhibited gross deficits and disinterest in mathematical tasks pursued a program of self-directed learning under conditions involving either proximal subgoals, distal goals, or no goals.Results of the multifaceted assessment provide support for the superiority of proximal self-influence.Under proximal subgoals, children progressed rapidly in self-directed learning, achieved substantial mastery of mathematical operations, and developed a sense of personal efficacy and intrinsic interest in arithmetic activities that initially held little attraction for them.Distal goals had no demonstrable effects.In addition to its other benefits, goal proximity fostered veridical self-knowledge of capabilities as reflected in high congruence between judgments of mathematical self-efficacy and subsequent mathematical performance.Perceived self-efficacy was positively related to accuracy of mathematical performance and to intrinsic interest in arithmetic activities. Article:Much human behavior is directed and sustained over long periods, even though the external inducements for it may be few and far between.Under conditions in which external imperatives are minimal and discontinuous, people must partly serve as agents of their own motivation and action.In social learning theory (Bandura, 1977b, in press), self-directedness operates through a self system that comprises cognitive structures and subfunctions for perceiving, evaluating, motivating, and regulating behavior.