The Effect of Contrived Success in Calculation Tasks on the Self-efficacy of Junior High School Students

This study examines whether contrived success on a task closely related to school subjects would promote students’ self-efficacy. In our previous study, junior high school students who experienced contrived success on anagram tasks raised their sense of self-efficacy and kept it high for a year. We tried to replicate that study, substituting calculation tasks for the anagrams. One hundred eighteen junior high school students participated in this study, 18 of whom were surreptitiously given easier tasks than their classmates. Those students with easier tasks outperformed their peers and thereby raised their sense of self-efficacy. However, elevated self-efficacy did not persist, falling to the starting level after only three months. Keywords—self-efficacy, contrived success, junior high school students, calculation tasks