2012;
Self-efficacy in school and community settings.
Shari L Britner
UIID-AD: 13
Abstract
Albert Bandura's introduction of social cognitive theory moved the field of social psychology from viewing people as primarily reacting to events to viewing people as being active agents who interpret events and plan their future behaviors. Educators and psychologists have become so familiar with this view that we often lose sight of the groundbreaking nature of his contributions. Since his introduction of social cognitive theory, self-efficacy has become a central construct in research on human learning, motivation, and accomplishment in many domains. The authors in this volume present self-efficacy research in a wide range of domains, including high school mathematics and science, an undergraduate neuroscience research program, cultural intelligence education, computer self-efficacy, courtroom self-efficacy, and smoking cessation self-efficacy. The introductory chapter provides an overview of self-efficacy theory, including a discussion of research indicating that self-efficacy beliefs are linked to interpersonal competence, coping ability, healthy lifestyle habits, work performance, parenting behaviors, and experiences in romantic relationships. Section I explores applications of self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educational settings. The first two chapters focus on students from populations currently underrepresented in STEM careers, i.e., women and people of color. The focus on mathematics and science self-efficacy continues but shifts to teaching self-efficacy in the remaining four chapters in this section. In Section II the focus is on community settings, with chapters on self-efficacy in cultural intelligence development, computer self-efficacy in business settings, courtroom witness self-efficacy, and work on a smoking-cessation self-efficacy scale with Chinese smokers. The authors represent five countries (Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Norway, USA) and nine states from several regions of the United States, as well as a broad diversity of school and community settings. This volume illustrates both the power of self-efficacy and the breadth of settings in which self-efficacy is applicable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved). (preface)
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