Exploring The Influence Of Self-Efficacy On Math Problem-Solving Of Secondary-Grade Students In High School

The concept of personal expectancy has a rich history in psychological theory on human motivation .Research conducted within various theoretical traditions supports the idea that expectancy can influence behavioral instigation, direction, effort, and persistence.In this article, I discuss academic motivation in terms of one type of personal expectancy: self-efficacy, defined as "People's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances". Since Bandura's seminal' article on self-efficacy, much research has clarified and extended the role of self-efficacy as a mechanism underlying behavioral change, maintenance; and generalization. For example, there is evidence that self-efficacy predicts such diverse outcomes as academic achievements, social skills, smoking cessation, pain tolerance, athletic performances, career choices, coping with feared events and recovery from heart attack。Perceived self-efficacy, which is neither skill nor real ability, refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to successfully perform a special task. There is a big difference between having skills and manage these skills to perform a behavior. Given person has necessary skills and knows what to do, if he lacks self-confidence, he can't successfully accomplished task. Self-efficacy is not an innate or fixed quality that individuals either have or do not have, but is an outcome of cognitive processes. Piagetian-influenced principles of learning have been used to describe self-efficacy as a Constructivist activity that has both antecedents and consequences.The mediating influence of self-efficacy may also act directly on factors affecting outcomes such as natural ability, by controlling the individual's action in utilizing that skill, and indirectly by intervening in the influence of other learning factors such as effort and interest. Self-efficacy is proposed to be a reliable predictor of this interest, effort, persistence and achievement displayed by individuals and as such self-efficacy beliefs are a valuable tool in the instruction of students.This research studied the self-efficacy beliefs of 274 mathematics students in high school, particularly focusing on the accuracy and predictability of their beliefs. Results mainly demonstrated:(1)Math self-efficacy and calibration accuracy were good predictors of math performance, but the latter was better than the former.(2)Students'math self-concept ,which was a background variable, had a indirect effect on math performance, and indirect effects were mediated via self-efficacy and perception of teacher's attitudes.(3)The effects of general cognitive ability and prior math achievement on math performance were mediated largely through the students'self-efficacy beliefs.(4)In contrast to prior studies ,among the background variables that were studied, gender did not emerge as a significant cause of calibration,self-efficacy beliefs and students'math performance.(5)The findings also did not reveal any gender differences in self-efficacy or calibration. The analyses showed that the three dependent measures (self-efficacy, calibration accuracy, math performance) displayed significant linear trends with increased item difficulty. For calibration bias, the means increased linearly as the items became more difficult.(6)Path analysis showed that perception of teacher's attitudes has no direct effect on math performance, but indirect effect was mediated by usefulness of math.