Prior to looking at self-regulated learning skills and study strategies, I wanted to determine if my inquiry should contain a connection to self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to complete a task, understand concepts, and overall succeed in a particular area. I was interested in the self-efficacy of students and if a relationship existed between self-efficacy and academic achievement. Based on prior research, I believed that if students had a higher self-efficacy, they would have a higher academic achievement. This being said though, all of my previous research had been done at a post-secondary level. Did the age and development difference between earlier adolescence and later adolescence cause a significant enough change that self-efficacy would no longer correlated to achievement? Hwang and colleagues research answered just my questions!

The research:

The authors investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and academic achievement in a 5 year longitudinal study of Korean high school students from grade 8 to grade 12. The main finding in the study was that a reciprocal causal relationship between self-efficacy an academic achievement from grade 8 to 12 existed. This means that past academic performance predicts self-efficacy positively, and that self-efficacy beliefs positively predict future academic achievement. Both findings support previous research which were executed at a post-secondary level. The effect of past academic achievement on self-efficacy beliefs was higher than that of self-efficacy beliefs on academic achievement. This indicates that past performance will determine a student’s self-efficacy, which can influence their future academic performance. Educators should encourage students with past high achievement to reflect on their practices to promote their self-efficacy. Educators should also encourage students with low academic performance to reflect as well but in a manner to not cause the student to feel defeated. Students should be able to identify moments of strengths and areas to improve. Intervention should target self-efficacy as well as academic achievement rather than one aspect as they are mutually reinforcing.

What does this mean for my inquiry?

My inquiry is about how to implement self-regulated learning and study strategies and their effects on self-efficacy. A factor in why I chose this inquiry is that I want students to study better, not harder, to have higher achievement. This research suggests that in addition to fostering self-regulated learning skills and study strategies, I should also be fostering student self-efficacy. The authors suggestions for fostering self-efficacy are through reflection by focusing on strengths, weaknesses and ways to improve. Reflections such as these are an important self-regulated learning skill that I want to implement into my classroom.

Reference:

Hwang, M. H., Choi, H. C., Lee, A., Culver, J. D., & Hutchison, B. (2016). The relationship between self-efficacy and academic achievement: A 5-year panel analysis. The Asia-Pacific Education Researc
her, 25(1), 89-98.