Exploring The Relationship Between Students’ Self-Efficacy And Simultaneous Interpreting Performance

Students’ simultaneous interpreting performance is affected by a multitude of factors.In addition to their interpretation skills and coping strategies,interpreting students’ attitudinal,affective and psychological state will also come into play to affect their level of performance.Scholars at home and abroad have studied the influence of psychological factors such as interpreting learning motivation and anxiety on interpreting performance,but there are still very limited studies of the influence of interpreting self-efficacy(ISE)on students’ interpreting output.Against this backdrop,it is of great significance to study the correlation between interpreting students’ ISE and their simultaneous interpretation so as to understand the interplay between the variables,and help design training tactics to enhance students’s self-efficacy and self-confidence,and finally improve the quality and effectiveness of interpreting training.This study,by employing the approach of questionnaire survey based on Bandura’s self-efficacy(SE)theory,investigates the self-efficacy level of interpreting students from three grades including their self-confidence(SC),self-regulatory efficacy(SR)and preference for task difficulty(TD).The results of data analysis show that:1)among all the interpreting students surveyed,ISE is positively correlated with their SI performance;2)for higher-achieving students,they tend to have higher ISE,with SR ranking the highest followed by SC and TD;3)for lower-achieving students,despite a generally lower level of ISE,they are also found with SR ranking the highest;4)the influence of ISE on students’ simultaneous interpretation is stronger among students of lower achievement in comparison with their more successful peers;5)there is significant difference in influence among the three subscales of ISE,namely SR,SC and TD on students’ interpreting performance and SR assumes the greatest power to predict students’SI performance.As an empirical study situated in a real-life teaching context,this study,with its findings,provides support for the incorporation of mental and psychological training in interpreting programs.It also sheds light on the research and teaching practices to further development and improve interpreting students’self-efficacy.