Research On Influential Factors Of Graduate Students' Academic Self-efficacy

Graduate education is an important part of higher education, and its quality plays an important role in the promotion of social development and enhancing overall national strength. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of graduate enrollment, pupil-teacher ratio has increased rapidly. Furthermore, more and more universities have begun to introduce the reform of graduate training mechanism. How is the psychological situation of graduate students in the context? Do they have confidence to achieve certain academic results? How can they improve the graduates' self-confidence? Because of these questions, the author carried out the survey.This study takes the combination of questionnaire and interview methods of investigation. Academic self-efficacy of graduate students was divided into three dimensions:the self-efficacy in academic courses, the self-efficacy in research activities and the self-efficacy in social practice. Based on these three dimensions and past research, the author designed the questionnaire of influence factors of graduate students' academic self-efficacy. The questionnaire was administered to the graduate students of E University. Then, the author analyzed the current situation of graduate students' academic self-efficacy and its influence factors by descriptive analysis, cluster analysis, difference analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis to returned questionnaires. Furthermore, the author tried to explain the results of the data by interviews survey to some selected samples.Major findings in this shows:academic self-efficacy of postgraduates can be divided into three parts—the self-efficacy in academic courses, the self-efficacy research activities, the self-efficacy in social practice; academic self-efficacy is different if the demographic variables(such as the gender and the hometown) is different; the factors such as individual psychological, physical health status, personal experience, academic resources and environment influences academic self-efficacy of postgraduates.There are some flaws in this study, for example:it is very difficult to determine all the influence factors of postgraduates'academic self-efficacy e has been covered in the questionnaire; this study is carried out in one university and its external validity requires further validation.