Supporting self-efficacy development from primary school to the professions: A guide for educators

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, scholars in various educational contexts have examined Bandura’s theorizing about how self-efficacy develops. Bandura proposed 4 primary informational sources of self-efficacy—enactive experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasions, and physiological and affective states—each of which can be supported in different ways. This article first defines and situates self-efficacy and these sources within a broader social cognitive theoretical frame. Subsequent sections highlight specific ways that educators can apply insights from Bandura’s theorizing and from the empirical literature that has examined self-efficacy development at different stages of learning and in diverse contexts. We address how educators can create instructional tasks that show progress, establish supportive social structures, and work with students’ emotions in ways that foster self-efficacy. Special attention is given to the sociocultural factors that affect how learners evaluate efficacy-relevant information. Several directions for further applying Bandura’s theory are offered.