In Social Foundations of Thought and Action, Albert Bandura wrote that individuals possess a self system that enables them to exercise a measure of control over their thoughts, their feelings, and their actions. This self system includes the abilities to symbolize, to learn from others, to plan alternative strategies, to regulate one's own behavior, and to engage in self-reflection. Human behavior results from the interplay between this self system and external-environmental sources of influence. In all, Bandura painted a portrait of human behavior and motivation in which the beliefs that people have about themselves are key elements in the exercise of control and of personal agency.

According to Bandura's social cognitive theory, individuals interpret and evaluate their own experiences and thought processes. Prior determinants of behavior, such as knowledge, skill, or prior attainments, predict subsequent behavior in concert with the beliefs that people hold about their abilities and about the outcome of their efforts. People's self-evaluations of the results of their behaviors inform and alter both their environments and their self-beliefs which, in turn, inform and alter subsequent behaviors. This is the foundation of Bandura's conception of reciprocal determinism, the view that personal factors in the form of cognition, affect, and biological events on the one hand, behavior on the other, and environmental influences (if you'll allow for a third hand) create interactions that result in a triadic reciprocality. Because personal agency is socially rooted and operates within sociocultural influences, individuals are both products and producers of their own environments and of their social systems. Viewed from this perspective, the self system that houses such cognitive and affective structures plays a prominent role in providing reference mechanisms and a set of subfunctions for perceiving, regulating, and evaluating behavior.

The process of creating and using beliefs is simple enough and rather intuitive: individuals engage in a behavior, interpret the outcomes of their actions, use the interpretations to develop beliefs about their capability to engage in subsequent behaviors in similar domains, and behave in concert with the beliefs created. In school, for example, the beliefs that students develop about their academic capabilities help determine what they do with the knowledge and skills they possess. Consequently, their academic performances are in large part the result of what students actually come to believe that they have accomplished and can accomplish. This helps explain why students' academic performances may differ markedly when they have similar ability. This is a view consistent with that of scholars and theorists who have long argued that the potent evaluative nature of beliefs makes them a filter through which new phenomena are interpreted and subsequent behavior mediated.

Bandura considered the human capability for self-reflection to be the most uniquely human capability, for this form of self-referent thought enables people to evaluate and alter their own thinking and behavior. These evaluations include perceptions of self-efficacy, which Bandura defined as "beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations."

Because self-efficacy is concerned with individuals' perceived capabilities to produce results and to attain designated types of performance, it differs, I believe rather markedly, from related conceptions of personal competence that form the core constructs of other theoretical perspectives in that self-efficacy judgments are both more task- and situation-specific, contextual if you will, and in that individuals make use of these judgments in reference to some type of goal.

The purpose of my talk today is fourfold. Having already defined self-efficacy, let me first outline for you the sources and effects of self-efficacy beliefs. Second, let me provide a brief synthesis of key findings related to the role of self-efficacy in academic settings. Third, I hope to identify some problems in the way self-efficacy is often operationalized and studied. And last, as did Professor Hattie and will Professor Pintrich, I will suggest some suggestions for future research that I believe would prove both practically relevant and theoretically useful to our understanding of self-beliefs.

To ground the final two points, let me first speak on the sources and effects of self-efficacy beliefs. The case for the contextual and mediational role of efficacy in human behavior can be made by exploring the four sources from which these beliefs are developed. Mastery experiences, the result of purposive performance, are the most influential source. Simply put, individuals gauge the effects of their actions, and their interpretations of these effects help create their efficacy beliefs. Success raises self-efficacy; failure lowers it.

The second source of efficacy information is vicarious experience of the effects produced by the actions of others. This source of information is weaker than enactive attainment, but, when people are uncertain about their own abilities or have limited prior experience, they become more sensitive to it. As Dale Schunk has demonstrated, the effects of modeling are particularly relevant in this context. The third source, social persuasions, involves exposure to the verbal judgments of others and is a weak source of efficacy information, but persuaders can nonetheless play an important part in the development of an individual's self-beliefs. Last, emotional and physiological states such as anxiety, stress, arousal, and fatigue also provide information about efficacy beliefs.

People's beliefs in their efficacy have diverse effects. Such beliefs influence the choice of behaviors in which individuals will engage and the courses of action they will pursue. People engage in tasks in which they feel competent and confident and avoid those in which they do not. If William James was correct that experience is essentially what individuals choose to attend to, then self-beliefs that influence those choices are instrumental in defining one's experience and providing an avenue through which people exercise a measure of control over the events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs also influence how much effort people will expend on an activity, how long they will persevere when confronting obstacles, how resilient they will prove in the face of adverse situations, whether their thought patterns and emotional reactions are self-hindering or self-aiding, how much stress and depression they experience in coping with taxing environmental demands, and the level of accomplishments they realize.

A strong sense of efficacy enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways. People with a strong sense of personal competence approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided, have greater intrinsic interest and deep engrossment in activities, set themselves challenging goals and maintain strong commitment to them, heighten and sustain their efforts in the face of failure, more quickly recover their sense of efficacy after failures or setbacks, and attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills which are acquirable.

People with low self-efficacy may believe that things are tougher than they really are, a belief that fosters stress, depression, and a narrow vision of how best to solve a problem. High self-efficacy, on the other hand, helps create feelings of serenity in approaching difficult tasks and activities. As a result of these influences, self-efficacy beliefs are strong determinants and predictors of the level of accomplishment that individuals finally attain.

For these reasons, Bandura has argued that "beliefs of personal efficacy constitute the key factor of human agency."

The construct of self-efficacy has a relatively brief history that began in 1977 with Bandura's publication of "Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change." The tenets of self-efficacy have since been tested in varied disciplines and settings and have received support from a growing body of findings from diverse fields. Self-efficacy has been the focus of studies on clinical problems such as phobias, depression, social skills, and assertiveness, on smoking behavior, on pain control, on health, and on athletic performance.

In academic settings, self-efficacy research has focused primarily on two major areas. One has explored the link between efficacy beliefs and college major and career choices, particularly in the areas of science and mathematics. Research in this area has shown that self-efficacy beliefs are predictive of the academic and career choices made by undergraduates and that young women at the high school and college levels often demonstrate lower mathematics self-efficacy even when their performance accomplishments are equal to or stronger than those of young men. This line of inquiry has important implications for counseling and vocational psychology theory and practice, given that findings have provided insights into the career choices of young men and women and can be used to develop appropriate career intervention strategies.

Studies in the second area have investigated the relationships among efficacy beliefs, related psychological constructs, and academic motivation and achievement. Self-efficacy has been prominent in studies that have explored its relationship with attributions, goal setting, memory, modeling, problem solving, reward contingencies, self-regulation, social comparisons, strategy training, teaching and teacher education, anxiety and self-concept, and academic performances across subject areas. In general, I am on relatively firm ground in stating that researchers have by now well established that self-efficacy beliefs are correlated with other self-beliefs and with academic choices and achievements and that self-efficacy is a strong predictor of related academic performances. Moreover, experimental designs have demonstrated that students' self-efficacy perceptions influence their effort and persistence in accomplishing academic tasks.

Let me now move to my third goal, which is to identify some problems in current self-efficacy research. As I have noted, to better understand the role that self-beliefs play in academic settings, researchers have investigated the relationship between these beliefs and various academic performances as well as that among the beliefs themselves. Although results have supported the contentions of social cognitive theory as regards both the sources and effects of self-efficacy, they have not been as successful in clarifying the nature of the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and motivational constructs from other theoretical perspectives. There are several reasons for this. In many cases, the problem is one of mismeasurement, and this problem has so plagued self-efficacy research that Professors Schunk and Zimmerman have been moved to put together a symposium on the matter that many of you may want to attend later this week.

In part, the problem is this. Bandura has cautioned researchers attempting to predict academic outcomes from students' self-efficacy beliefs that, to increase accuracy of prediction, they would be well advised to follow theoretical guidelines regarding specificity of self-efficacy assessment and correspondence with criterial tasks. This caution has often gone unheeded in educational research, and efficacy assessments have too often been global and general and have lacked the specificity of measurement, consistency with the criterial task, and microanalytic analysis that optimizes the predictive power of self-efficacy beliefs. The result is often confounded relationships and ambiguous findings that obfuscate the potential contribution of self-efficacy beliefs to the understanding of academic performances.

A second reason for the lack of clarity regarding the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and other motivational constructs is that most theories of motivation include self-perceptions of competence or "confidence" judgments, varyingly defined, either as part of their own definition or as a key component that helps to explain how their own construct behaves (for example, this is true for the two other conceptions of self-belief presented to you today). There are also conceptual forerunners or related conceptions of self-efficacy--these include self-concept of ability, self-confidence, self-perceptions of ability, ability perceptions, performance expectancies. Because these differently defined, and understood, self-perceptions of competence are differently used to suit research agendas from other theoretical camps, research findings can provide a formidable obstacle to the development of informed scholarship. Problems are compounded, of course, when researchers identify ill-defined and used assessments of competence as "self-efficacy" perceptions, as they sometimes do. This is, of course, not to argue that Bandura's brand of social cognition has the market cornered on the correct view and/or use of perceptions of personal competence in scholarly research. Rather, it is to suggest that developing a clearer understanding of the role that these judgments may play in human functioning, or indeed the role that any motivational construct may play, is made difficult when a community of scholars is unable to achieve clarity of thought and expression, preciseness of word choice and meaning, and some consistency in its use of theoretical constructs.

Let me close by moving to my fourth goal of this talk, which is to offer suggestions for future research or practice in this area, research that would provide practical, relevant, and theoretical insights (as though theory could ever be irrelevant or impractical!). First, various researchers have noted the need to explore the generality of self-efficacy beliefs--that is, the extent to which they relate to, or transfer across, different performance tasks or domains, so as to increase its practical utility. For example, social cognitive theory posits that generality is enhanced when the skills required to accomplish dissimilar activities are acquired together as a result of effective instruction. If this is so, will students' mathematics and verbal self-efficacy generalize if the skills for each domain have been adequately taught and developed by a competent teacher? Self-efficacy should also generalize in academic domains when commonalities are cognitively structured across activities. If students can be helped to realize that increased effort and persistence result in academic progress and greater understanding in mathematics, will they make similar connections to other subject areas? There are also "transforming experiences" that come about as the result of powerful performance attainments and serve to strengthen beliefs in diverse areas of one's life, areas often greatly unrelated. Many doctoral students will attest to the fact that successful completion of a dissertation can dramatically alter their confidence to deal with activities and events quite unrelated to their scholarly pursuits. Understanding the conditions under which self beliefs will generalize to differing activities in academic contexts offers valuable possibilities for intervention and instructional strategies that may help students build both competence and the necessary accompanying self-perceptions of competence.

The second suggestion deals with some cautions that should be taken as regards their nature and focus of these interventions to increase self-efficacy. As is presently the case with self-esteem, I have little doubt that self-efficacy will soon come in a kit. Bandura's emphasis that enactive attainment is the most influential source of self-efficacy information has important implications for the self-enhancement model of academic achievement that Professor Hattie spoke about. Some theorists have maintained that, to increase achievement, educational efforts should be aimed primarily at raising students' self-beliefs. Social cognitive theory shifts that aim to a joint effort to raise competence and confidence primarily through successful experience with the performance at hand, through authentic mastery experiences.

Of course, some self-efficacy researchers have suggested that teachers would be well served by paying as much attention to students' perceptions of competence as to actual competence, for it is the perceptions that may more accurately predict students' motivation and future academic choices. Clearly, assessing students' self-efficacy can provide teachers with important insights. As I noted earlier, researchers have demonstrated that self-efficacy beliefs strongly influence the choice of majors and career decisions of college students. In some cases, unrealistically low self-efficacy perceptions, not lack of capability or skill, may in part be responsible for avoidance of certain courses and careers. If this is so, efforts to identify and alter these inaccurate judgments, in addition to continued skill improvement, should prove beneficial. And, if self-efficacy beliefs are a primary cause of feelings of anxiety and apprehension, then interventions designed to improve skills by decreasing anxiety may be useful to the extent that they increase students' confidence in their capability.

Clearly, students who lack confidence in skills they possess are not likely to engage in tasks in which those skills are required, and they will more quickly give up in the face of difficulty. In various studies, researchers have reported that girls perform as capably as do boys in varied academic tasks but, nonetheless, report lower self-efficacy. Future studies should aim to discover the extent of this phenomenon across academic areas and levels, and, if such is the case, why this difference should exist in the face of equal ability and performance. It is also clearly necessary to explore the genesis of self-efficacy beliefs as well as the nature of their connections with other self-beliefs.

Bandura argued that successful functioning is best served by reasonably accurate efficacy appraisals, although the most functional efficacy judgments are those that slightly exceed what one can really accomplish. And researchers generally find that most students overestimate their academic competence, often to very high degrees. But how much confidence is too much confidence? I am uncertain as to when overconfidence may be characterized as excessive and maladaptive in an academic enterprise. Bandura argued that "the stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the more likely are persons to select challenging tasks, the longer they persist at them, and the more likely they are to perform them successfully." I wonder if the strong self-efficacy that many students demonstrate ultimately results in these benefits. Although I strongly discourage efforts to lower students' efficacy percepts or interventions designed to raise already overconfident beliefs, I see value in developing intervention strategies and instructional techniques aimed at helping students develop more accurate self-appraisals. Improving students' calibration--the accuracy of their self-perceptions--will require helping them to better understand what they know and do not know so that they may more effectively deploy appropriate cognitive strategies during the problem-solving process, but the challenge is to accomplish this without lowering their confidence and optimism. Additional research should be aimed at exploring the nature of the relationship between efficacy judgments and calibration. Insights from other quarters of cognitive research may be useful in this regard.

Studies of self-efficacy should continue to include additional common mechanisms of personal agency that provide a self-regulatory function (for example, knowledge of strategies to solve problems). Research efforts should also be aimed at discovering prior determinants of academic attainment and sources of efficacy information other than those typically used--aptitude, ability, previous achievement--as well as how perceptions of efficacy mediate the influence of these sources on subsequent performances. Quantitative efforts should be complemented by qualitative studies aimed at exploring how efficacy beliefs are developed and how students perceive that these beliefs influence their academic attainments and the academic choices that they make.

As to the predictive supremacy of self-efficacy and of other constructs in the area of academic motivation, I am confident we can all agree that knowledge, competence, and various forms of self-knowledge and self-belief act in concert to provide explanations of behavior. Such explanations cannot be had without considering the role that each may play in human decision-making and functioning in a given context. This rich and often complex interplay may create situations in which self-efficacy, or any other type of self-referent judgment, is neither the most important influence on nor especially predictive of behavior. Moreover, human functioning is such that discordances between belief and action, or even between beliefs themselves, are not only possible but likely. As William James observed, we may often find that "the greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths." For example, some students may be highly confident of their academic ability, but, if the outcomes they expect are dismal (a poor job market, strong competition for few jobs, social rejection by peers), it is doubtful they will behave in concert with their beliefs. Conversely, low self-efficacy may be overcome by valued outcomes and potential rewards. Of course, if individuals lack necessary skills, no amount of self-efficacy or self-worth, no goal, no expectancy or value, and no conception of past, present, or future self will bring about the desired performance, although increased effort, persistence, and perseverance may lay the foundation for skill improvement and better subsequent performance.

Nonetheless, because, as Bandura has written, individuals' beliefs of personal competence "touch, at least to some extent, most everything they do," and because self-efficacy beliefs mediate the effect of other determinants of behavior, when these determinants are controlled, self-efficacy judgments will usually prove excellent predictors of choice and direction of behavior. And because human behavior is multiply determined, its understanding and explanation will always require an appreciation of the interplay among the determinants that act as common mechanisms of personal agency. Commonality of mechanism, Bandura cautioned, should not be confused with exclusivity of mechanism. Hence one need not fear that perceived self efficacy will "usurp the lion's share of the variance in human conduct."

Let me conclude by observing that, if we are to develop more complete understandings of the sources of this variance, researchers with differing theoretical allegiances might engage in greater intertheoretical crosstalk and investigative collaboration using research designs that incorporate the various constructs operationalized and used in a manner consistent with the construct's theoretical home. For example, researchers incorporating self-efficacy perceptions into studies of self-concept might ensure that these self-perceptions are assessed at a level of specificity consistent with the outcome variables under investigation. Results would then inform the tenets of each theory. For their part, self-efficacy researchers would take the same methodological precautions when assessing and using other motivational constructs. In studies requiring the use of self-report instruments, researchers might conceptualize and assess a construct by using instruments consistent with those created by researchers from the construct's theoretical home, in addition to alternative conceptualizations or definitions, so as to shed light on the role of the differing conceptualizations. Such efforts would be instrumental in identifying the contexts in which certain motivational constructs may be better predictors of human functioning as well as the unique role that each construct plays in the general development of self-regulatory skills. The result would be a clearer and deeper understanding of the nature of the interplay between self-efficacy and its motivational cousins.

I feel confident that James, Dewey, Mead, Maslow and so many other theorists who so strongly emphasized the importance of trying to understand the elusive self are well pleased with the attention it is currently receiving. Ultimately, of course, our strongest motivation to engage in these investigations is provided by our desire to discover ways of helping our students to learn, our teachers to teach, and our administrators and policy-makers to create environments conducive to those tasks. Each of the three constructs we speak about today have great potential to enrich our understanding of these educational processes. If we persevere down these roads, if we are wise, and if we are inclusive in our conversation, I expect that the study of these self-beliefs can provide a contribution to educational research and practice.