What Is Self-Efficacy?
Self-efficacy is defined as the belief in one's abilities to achieve a goal or outcome. Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory is a psychological perspective in which determined that people who believe they can succeed at a task, are more likely than others to be successful. Self-efficacy is one factor in determining achievement.
Self-efficacy in writing relates to a student's belief about him/herself as a writer. If a student holds a high sense of self-efficacy in writing, that student believes she is capable of writing. She will set goals, work towards goals, accept and apply feedback, overcome setbacks, and accomplish writing tasks. If a student holds a low sense of self-efficacy in writing, that student believes she is incapable of writing. She will resist writing tasks because she views the challenge of writing as a threat. The student with low self-efficacy in writing will avoid writing tasks, have low aspirations for herself in writing, and therefore struggle accomplish writing tasks. A student's self-efficacy may be different in different content areas. For example, a student may hold a high level of self-efficacy in reading, but a low level in writing.
According to Bandura, there are four main sources of self-efficacy:
Performance Experiences: When students perform a task successfully, their sense of self-efficacy becomes strengthened.
Social Modeling: When we see someone succeed by sustained effort, we may believe we too have the ability to succeed.
Social Persuasion: When someone tells us we have the skills and capabilities to succeed, we are encouraged, and are able to overcome self-doubt and focus on giving our best effort.
Psychological Responses: When people learn to minimize stress and elevate their mood during stressful, challenging times, they can improve their sense of self-efficacy.]
Why Self-Efficacy In Writing Matters
A person who possesses a high sense of self-efficacy will work towards goals. This person is motivated and believes she is capable of accomplishing the tasks she sets out to achieve. Research on self-efficacy and achievement have shown that students with a high sense of self-efficacy will persevere, participate more in academic activities, and respond with less adverse emotional reactions when faced with challenges. Bandura’s social cognitive theory suggests that our perspectives are directly related to our actions. Therefore, people will behave with more confidence when they believe and feel capable of success.
Students with a high level of self-efficacy in writing:
uses the writing process and writing checklists to self-monitor and self-regulate
creates and works toward writing goals (with the support of the teacher)
is motivated to write
is happier about writing
accepts and applies feedback in the revising and editing process
views writing as a process that takes time
"People who perceive themselves as a highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future, rather than simply foretell it." - Albert Bandura
Think about your students. Are they demonstrating high or low levels of self-efficacy in writing? What can be done to grow the self-efficacy of all students in writing?
Strategies To Support Self-Efficacy In Writing
Most likely you have your students for just one year. In one year, you can support the development of students' self-efficacy in writing. You can help your students learn to self-regulate, persevere, overcome challenges in writing, and believe they are capable of writing. To do this, you can support development of their main sources of self-efficacy.
Support Performance Experiences
A white belt is not expected to perform at the same level as a black belt. Take steps to success and allow students to perform at each step along the way before moving on to the next step. Success along the way helps students develop their self-efficacy in writing.
Chunk learning into manageable skills and tasks. Allow students opportunities to demonstrate mastery of one skill or task before moving on to the next. For example, before students can organize their ideas in writing, they must first have ideas to write about.
Use learning progressions with students. Provide students with a progressive checklist or roadmap for writing success. Teach students that progressions are the steps to take to reach the final goal.
Support Social Modeling Experiences
Social modeling is experiencing someone else doing the work, understanding how they accomplished a task, and then believing that if that person can do it, then so can I. Peer models can support growth and help increase self-efficacy.
Identify how a student used controllable efforts to improve. When a student applies a strategy, identify how that strategy helped him master the skill. For example, "I noticed you mapped out all of your ideas before you started writing today. Tell me how this helped you write today?" Students can learn to internalize this language as part of their writing repertoire, and then apply the same language with peers to support their growth.
Allow students to work together in writing. Offer students opportunities to talk about writing and even write together. Hearing the ideas of others and seeing how they apply them can help students try the work on their own. Celebrate efforts along the way, even when it's copying! Identify what the student has done (i.e. copied all punctuation and organized paragraphs), praise them for the effort they put into the work, and then show them how to do this work with their own ideas. We can grow self-efficacy when we work as a community of writers, not when we act as competitors in writing.
Support Social Persuasion Experiences
The language we use in our feedback can either grow self-efficacy in writing or lower self-efficacy in writing. Feedback should be POSITIVE! Process-centered feedback encourages the efforts the student is making in writing.
Give specific, actionable feedback that focuses on the process. Help students identify the connection between effort and success. To do this, use language that supports the application of skills and strategies. For example, instead of saying, "Good job! Your writing looks awesome!" say, "I noticed you included specific adjectives to describe these nouns. When you do this, you are helping me see what's in your mind. Authors like you do this in writing to help the reader visualize the words. You should keep doing this!" Using this language identifies what the student did well as a writer. Students will learn to use the language you modeled for them when they support the growth of their peers.
Support Psychological Response Experiences
Support a collaborative, calm, and encouraging writing environment. In this space, students feel supported when taking risks in writing. This helps them feel more confident and capable of accomplishing difficult tasks.
Identify a stressful experience, say it out loud, and teach them a strategy to overcome stress. As we all know, writing can be stressful for students at times. Teach students to acknowledge when they are feeling stressed. Stress might make them feel overwhelmed, scared, or even angry. When they feel stressed, they might not want to do the work. So, what can they do to overcome this feeling and feel safe to take risks? They might take a deep breath, stand up and move, write in a different place, read a mentor text for writing ideas, talk to a peer about what he/she is writing, review an anchor chart, or even choose a different topic. Consider doing this as a mini-lesson and invite ideas from students about what they can do when this happens. This will encourage students to view writing as collaborative and safe. The classroom is a place where they are capable of self-regulation and overcoming difficult tasks.
Everyone Can Learn To Write
The classroom is a space for students learn and grow. Self-efficacy is a complicated construct, but can be supported in an effective classroom with a positive, encouraging, and knowledgeable teacher. Knowing what self-efficacy is and why it's important can help you support students when they struggle to write. When teachers chunk the writing process into manageable steps, encourage using peers for support, and offer specific and actionable feedback in a safe environment, then everyone can learn to write.
Resources:
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
Bandura, A. (1995). Self-efficacy in changing societies. Cambridge University Press.
Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning.
Educational Psychologist, 28(2), 117-148.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy. Harvard Mental Health Letter, 13(9).
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