The Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Self-Regulatory Skill

Adolescence is often a stressful period during development because it involves a pivotal transition from childhood dependency to adulthood independence and self-sufficiency (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 1998). One major challenge that adolescents encounter during their teenage years involves acquiring a sense of personal agency in what often seems to be a recalcitrant world. Personal agency refers to one's capability to originate and direct actions for given purposes. It is influenced by the belief in one's effectiveness in performing specific tasks, which is termed self-efficacy, as well as by one's actual skill. In this chapter, we trace the development of personal agency during adolescence as well as the defining and distinctive features of adolescent students' self-efficacy beliefs. We then contrast self-efficacy with alternative self-related constructs , and we examine its causal role in adolescents' motivation, achievement, and academic development. Finally, we describe the interdependence of adolescents' academic self-efficacy beliefs and their use of self-regulatory processes, and we consider the implications of this research for designing training interventions to enhance students' academic agency. In both the schools and the larger society, the onset of adolescence marks a profound shift in expectations regarding students' ability to assume responsibility for their functioning. When students enter middle or junior high schools, they are no longer under the direct control of a single teacher but instead are taught by a number of teachers in different classrooms, often with different classmates. These adolescents are expected to personally manage these diverse requirements for learning in class or to seek out help when it is needed, especially from their teachers. At this middle level of schooling, a significant part of stu-dents' academic work is completed outside of class, including reading assigned texts, writing papers, and preparing for tests. Adolescents' success in making this developmental transition is complicated by a major increase in the difficulty of the academic work that is assigned in middle or junior high schools (Wigfield, Eccles, & Pintrich, 1996). If adolescents fail to regulate this demanding academic environment effectively, their academic grades will likely decline—often leading to a loss of self-efficacy about succeeding in school. As their self-efficacy diminishes, adolescents can become embedded in a downward cycle of academic achievement that may involve aligning themselves with peers who possess unfavorable views about the value and importance of school (Stein-berg, Brown, & Dornbusch, 1996). Conversely, adolescents with a strong sense of efficacy for learning are more resilient …