Self Theory of Motivation (Self-Efficacy)

1) Self-efficacy is the belief in someone's own ability to accomplish something.

2)  A person develops their own self-efficacy by: past performance, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and states of emotional arousal.  Self-efficacy is improved in students when they have mastered something and feel their success is due to their effort.  Observing someone else perform the task at hand, vicarious experiences, helps improve one's self-efficacy, especially when the observer is at the same level as the model.  Verbal persuasion has been seen to determine one's self-efficacy if the person doing the praising is seen as important.  Students who are fatigued, stressed or anxious tend to not have as high of a self-efficacy as a student who is confident and eager.  There are three main components for an individual to be motivated based off of Bandura, outcome expectations, efficacy expectations and self-regulation.  Outcome expectations is simply what an individual believes to be the outcome. Efficacy expectations are what the individual believes of their own ability. Self-regulation is one's ability to control their emotions. Self-efficacy is related to Bandura's social cognitive theory. Two of the three main assumptions from Bandura's theory are covered with the idea of self-efficacy.  Learning can occur by observing others and personal characteristics are important in learning are the two assumptions of Bandura's theory covered in the book.

3) An activity that could be conducted based off of self-efficacy in a classroom of 1st graders with a diverse group could be based on spelling words.  In order to get the children excited and in a good emotional state I would have the students learn the words by different chants or songs.  I would first demonstrate the chant and then have the students repeat back. The children would feel more capable of doing the chant after seeing me and their classmates doing it as well.  Chants and songs have been shown to help students learn something and retain it better, therefore students are more likely to do well on their spelling assessments, raising their outcome expectations and efficacy expectations for future lessons. Along with these different motivational aspects I would encourage the students as I teach them the spelling words.  Because different student's self-efficacy is affected differently, I have touched on each aspect of self-efficacy motivation in order to encompass all of my students.