Research School Network: Exploring Self-Efficacy This post explores some of the key features of Bandura’s research on self-efficacy and how it can be used in the classroom.

In the 1970s Albert Bandura from Stanford University published his research on self-efficacy. In ​‘Visible learning and the science of how we learn’ John Hattie describes self-efficacy as ​‘one’s confidence level about being successful on the next task on your life agenda’. This is not to be mistaken (as it often is) with judgements we might make about ourselves or others about the type of person we/​they are generally, our/​their self-esteem or specific perceived competencies. It is about confidence for succeeding on the very task that you are presented with there and then.

This article will explore some of the observations Hattie makes about self-efficacy and how this can and should influence our approach as teachers.



1. ​“The efficacy assessment is the first thing your mind does whenever it sees a task that will need your attention and participation. Making a positive efficacy assessment then enables four immediate outcomes:A willingness to undertake the task even when known to be difficult.
Mobilisation of available effortful resources to match the perceived difficulty level.
A willingness to increase effortful resources in response to setbacks
The person’s attentional forces shifts onto the demands of the task rather than dwelling on personal or emotional reactions”

Implications for the classroom:

It’s important not to forget that this process will be going on in the minds of our students whenever they are asked them to perform a task. As it is with us every time we have to tackle a new task. It’s worth thinking about because, as it says above, when students feel a sense of self-efficacy when they are approaching a task, they can focus their attention on the task, rather than feeling anxious about not be able to tackle it. This can only help to support the learning process.

2. ​“The one dominant factor that drives your self-efficacy is your memory. To feel confident about the next task, you must be able to activate knowledge about similar tasks you were successful on in the past​”

Implications for the classroom:

Don’t expect students to be able to tackle a task, if they don’t have the knowledge that the task requires – we can only think about what we know. Furthermore, they need to be able to retrieve knowledge of similar tasks they have done before. We can support them with this, by questioning them on the knowledge that will be required, before they tackle a task – and then explicitly teaching them to think about and retrieve the knowledge they will need, before they tackle tasks in the future.


3. ​“Young students gain a sense of self-efficacy through observing peers work on difficult problems.”

Implications for the classroom:

This speaks for itself. Students will develop a sense of self-efficacy through watching their peers tackle similar problems. It’s easy to see why this makes sense – ​‘Well if they can do it, so can I’. It’s not as simple as this though. I play the guitar (badly!), but can’t just get better by watching Eric Clapton play – because I’m a novice and he’s an expert and novices need different instruction to experts. The same is true of our students. If we get them to work with a peer who is considerably more competent than them, the effect on their self-efficacy will be negative. The gap in their ability to complete the task (relative to their more competent peer) will be too large and they will think that they won’t be able to complete the task successfully. So, we need to think carefully when grouping students to work together. They should be at a similar level of competence – avoid matching a ​‘novice’ with an ​‘expert’.


4. ​“Simply telling a student ​‘you can do it’ is not an appropriate message if it conflicts with what this young person is telling him or herself. Such messages only work once they convey meaningful information such as ​‘I know you can do these problems as they are just like the ones you did last week, but a bit harder, that’s all”

Implications for the classroom:

This is one of the main criticisms about how Dweck’s growth mindset theory has been wrongly interpreted – just telling a student ​‘you can achieve anything if you just try hard’ is misleading and simply not true (Carl Hendrick has written a great essay on this here). The secret here is the idea that success begets success – so telling a student that they will be able to successfully tackle a task, because they been successful with similar tasks previously, will support their sense of self-efficacy.

Further Reading

Self-Efficacy and how can we help our students get more of it?

Self-Efficacy – Albert Bandura

The Indefatigability of Hope – Alex Quigley

EEF Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning