Journal of Education and Psychology

Abstract

Bandura’s (1986) social learning theory advocates that personal, behavioral, and environmental factors continuously interact to determine the individual’s subsequent behavior. Bandura also suggests that self-efficacy helps understand the relationship between peoples’ cognitive processes and behavior change. When considering mental stresses from difficulties in entering college among senior high school students, the concept of self-efficacy may provide a better understanding of students’ behavior patterns and perceptions from different personal traits and aptitudes, and environments.

This study examined the factors on self-efficacy for senior high schools students and investigated its relationship with students’ academic achievement. Those factors caused by personal and school aspects included students’ gender, prior experience, motivation, teacher’s expectation, the gender of peers, and competition level of school. Two hundred and ninety-seven senior high school students took part. Data were analyzed through Pearson’s r, t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple regression.

The results suggested that: there was no significant difference between girls and boys on academic self-efficacy; there was no significant difference between the gender of the peers on academic self-efficacy; there was significant difference among the competitiveness of school environment on academic self-efficacy; there was significant difference among the levels of teacher’s expectations on academic self-efficacy; there was significant difference among the levels of students’ motivation on academic self-efficacy; there was a positive relationship between students’ past performance and academic self-efficacy, but the relationship was not statistically significant. Among six possible factors, only students’ motivation, expectation from teachers and competitiveness of the environment indicated significant prediction; there was a positive relationship between students’ performance and academic self-efficacy, but the relationship was not statistically significant.

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