Category: Motivating Content

Motivating Content!

Motivation is the reason for people’s actions, desires, and needs. Motivating Content is also one’s direction to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior. A motive is what prompts the person to act in a certain way, or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior. According to Maehr and Meyer, “Motivation is a word that is part of the popular culture as few other psychological concepts are”.

What is Motivating? Using incentives, persuasion, and mental or physical stimulants to influence the way people think or behave individually or in groups. Provide (someone) with a reason for doing something. Cause (someone) to have interest in or enthusiasm for something. Request (something) and present facts and arguments in support of one’s request.

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  • What is the Self-Efficacy? Meaning, Definition, and Source

    What is the Self-Efficacy? Meaning, Definition, and Source

    Self-Efficacy Meaning, Definition, and Source; Self-efficacy, also referred to as personal efficacy, is the extent or strength of one’s belief in one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals. Psychologists have studied self-efficacy from several perspectives, noting various paths in the development of self-efficacy; the dynamics of self-efficacy, and lack thereof, in many different settings; interactions between self-efficacy and self-concept; and habits of attribution that contribute to, or detract from, self-efficacy.

    What is Self-Efficacy? also explain their topic Meaning, Definition, and Source.

    Self-efficacy affects every area of human endeavor. By determining the beliefs, a person holds regarding his or her power to affect situations, strongly influences both the power a person actually has to face challenges competently and the choices a person is most likely to make. These effects are particularly apparent, and compelling, concerning behaviors affecting health.

    Meaning and Definition of Self-Efficacy?

    Perceived self-efficacy define as people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes. They include cognitive, motivational, affective, and selection processes.

    A strong sense of efficacy enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways. People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to master rather than as threats to avoid. Such an efficacious outlook fosters intrinsic interest and deep engrossment in activities. They set themselves challenging goals and maintain a strong commitment to them. They heighten and sustain their efforts in the face of failure. Also, They quickly recover their sense of efficacy after failures or setbacks.

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    They attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills which are acquirable. They approach threatening situations with assurance that they can exercise control over them. Such an efficacious outlook produces personal accomplishments, reduces stress, and lowers vulnerability to depression.

    In contrast, people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult tasks which they view as personal threats. Also, They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the goals they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on their personal deficiencies, on the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than concentrate on how to perform successfully. They slacken their efforts and give up quickly in the face of difficulties. They are slow to recover their sense of efficacy following failure or setbacks. Because they view insufficient performance as deficient aptitude it does not require much failure for them to lose faith in their capabilities. They fall easy victim to stress and depression.

    Source of Self-Efficacy

    People’s beliefs about their efficacy can develop by four main sources of influence. The most effective way of creating a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences. Successes build a robust belief in one’s personal efficacy. Failures undermine it, especially if failures occur before a sense of efficacy firmly establish.

    If people experience only easy successes, they come to expect quick results and easily discourage by failure. A resilient sense of efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort. Some setbacks and difficulties in human pursuits serve a useful purpose in teaching that success usually requires sustained effort. After people become convinced they have what it takes to succeed, they persevere in the face of adversity and quickly rebound from setbacks. By sticking it out through tough times, they emerge stronger from adversity.

    Second way

    The second way of creating and strengthening self-beliefs of efficacy is through the vicarious experiences provided by social models. Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained effort raises observers’ beliefs that they too possess the capabilities to master comparable activities required to succeed. By the same token, observing others’ fail despite high effort lowers observers’ judgments of their own efficacy and undermines their efforts. The impact of modeling on perceived self-efficacy strongly influences by perceived similarity to the models. The greater the assumed similarity the more persuasive are the models’ successes and failures. If people, see the models as very different from themselves their perceived self-efficacy is not much influenced by the models’ behavior and the results it produces.

    Modeling influences do more than provide a social standard against which to judge one’s own capabilities. People seek proficient models who possess the competencies to which they aspire. Through their behavior and expressed ways of thinking, competent models transmit knowledge and teach observers effective skills and strategies for managing environmental demands. Acquisition of better means raises perceived self-efficacy.

    Third way

    Social persuasion is a third way of strengthening people’s beliefs that they have what it takes to succeed. People who persuade verbally that they possess the capabilities to master gives activities are likely to mobilize greater effort and sustain it than if they harbor self-doubts and dwell on personal deficiencies when problems arise. To the extent that persuasive boosts in perceived self-efficacy lead people to try hard enough to succeed, they promote the development of skills and a sense of personal efficacy.

    It is more difficult to instill high beliefs of personal efficacy by social persuasion alone than to undermine it. Unrealistic boosts in efficacy quickly dis-confirm by disappointing results of one’s efforts. But people who have been persuaded that they lack capabilities tend to avoid challenging activities that cultivate potentialities and give up quickly in the face of difficulties. By constricting activities and undermining motivation, disbelief in one’s capabilities creates its own behavioral validation.

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    Successful efficacy builders do more than convey positive appraisals. In addition to raising people’s beliefs in their capabilities, they structure situations for them in ways that bring success and avoid placing people in situations prematurely where they are likely to fail often. They measure success in terms of self-improvement rather than by triumphs over others.

    People also rely partly on their somatic and emotional states in judging their capabilities. They interpret their stress reactions and tension as signs of vulnerability to poor performance. In activities involving strength and stamina, people judge their fatigue, aches, and pains as signs of physical debility. Mood also affects people’s judgments of their personal efficacy. A positive mood enhances perceived self-efficacy, a despondent mood diminishes it. The fourth way of modifying self-beliefs of efficacy is to reduce people’s stress reactions and alter their negative emotional proclivities and is-interpretations of their physical states.

    It is not the sheer intensity of emotional and physical reactions that is important but rather how they perceive and interpret. People who have a high sense of efficacy are likely to view their state of affective arousal as an energizing facilitator of performance, whereas those who are beset by self-doubts regard their arousal as a debilitator. Physiological indicators of efficacy play an especially influential role in health functioning and athletic and other physical activities.

    What is the Self-Efficacy Meaning Definition and Source Image
    What is the Self-Efficacy? Meaning, Definition, and Source; Image from Pixabay.
  • Adaptive Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy

    Adaptive Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy

    Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy; There is a growing body of evidence that human accomplishments and positive well-being require an optimistic sense of personal efficacy. This is because ordinary social realities strew with difficulties. They are full of impediments, adversities, setbacks, frustrations, and inequities. People must have a robust sense of personal efficacy to sustain the perseverant effort needed to succeed. In pursuits strewn with obstacles, realists either forsake them, abort their efforts prematurely when difficulties arise, or become cynical about the prospects of effecting significant changes.

    Here is the article to explain, What are the Adaptive Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy?

    It widely believes that misjudgment breeds personal problems. Certainly, gross miscalculation can get one into trouble. However, the functional value of accurate self-appraisal depends on the nature of the activity. Activities in which mistakes can produce costly or injurious consequences call for accurate self-appraisal of capabilities. It is a different matter where difficult accomplishments can produce substantial personal and social benefits and the costs involve one’s time, effort, and expendable resources. People with a high sense of efficacy have the staying power to endure the obstacles and setbacks that characterize difficult undertakings.

    When people err in their self-appraisal they tend to overestimate their capabilities. This is a benefit rather than a cognitive failing to eradicate. If efficacy beliefs always reflected only what people can do routinely they would rarely fail but they would not set aspirations beyond their immediate reach nor mount the extra effort needed to surpass their ordinary performances.

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    People who experience much distress have been comparing in their skills and beliefs in their capabilities with those who do not suffer from such problems. The findings show that it is often the normal people who are distorters of reality. But they display self-enhancing biases and distort in the positive direction. People who are socially anxious or prone to depression are often just as socially skill as those who do not suffer from such problems. But the normal ones believe they are much more adept than they really are. The no depressed people also have a stronger belief that they exercise some control over situations.

    Social reformers strongly believe that they can mobilize the collective effort needed to bring social change. Although their beliefs rarely fully realize they sustain reform efforts that achieve important gains. Were social reformers to be entirely realistic about the prospects of transforming social systems they would either forego the endeavor or fall easy victim to discouragement. Realists may adapt well to existing realities. But those with a tenacious self-efficacy are likely to change those realities.

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    Innovative achievements also require a resilient sense of efficacy. Innovations require heavy investment of effort over a long period with uncertain results. Moreover, innovations that clash with existing preferences and practices meet with negative social reactions. It is, therefore, not surprising that one rarely finds realists in the ranks of innovators and great achievers.

    In his delightful book, titled, Rejection, John White provides vivid testimony, that the striking characteristic of people who have achieved eminence in their fields is an inextinguishable sense of personal efficacy and a firm belief in the worth of what they are doing. This resilient self-belief system enabled them to override repeated early rejections of their work.

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    Many of our literary classics brought their author’s countless rejections. James Joyce’s, The Dubliners, was canceled by 22 publishers. Gertrude Stein continues to submit poems to editors for 20 years before one was finally accepting. Over a dozen publishers rejected a manuscript by e. e. cummings. When he finally got it to publish, by his mother, the dedication read, in upper case: With no thanks to . . . follows by the list of 16 publishers who had rejected his manuscript.

    Early rejection is the rule, rather than the exception, in other creative endeavors. The Impressionists had to arrange their own exhibitions because their works go to routinely cancel by the Paris Salon. Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. Rodin was rejected three times for admission to the ‘cole des Beaux-Arts.

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    The musical works of most renowned composers were initially greeted with derision. Stravinsky was run out of town by enraging Parisians and critics when he first serves them the Rite of Spring. Entertainers in contemporary pop culture have not fared any better. Decca records rejected a recording contract with the Beatles with the non-prophetic evaluation, “We don’t like their sound.

    Groups of guitars are on the way out.” Columbia Records was next to turn them down. Theories and technologies that are ahead of their time usually suffer repeat rejections. The rocket pioneer, Robert Goddard, was bitterly rejected by his scientific peers because rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefies atmosphere of outer space. Because of the cold reception given to innovations, the time between conception and technical realization is discouragingly long.

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    The moral of the Book of Rejections is that rejections should not accept too readily as indicants of personal failings. To do so is self-limiting.

    In sum, the successful, the venturesome, the sociable, the no anxious, the no depressed, the social reformers, and the innovators take an optimistic view of their personal capabilities to exercise influence over events that affect their lives. If not unrealistically exaggerated, such self-beliefs foster positive well-being and human accomplishments.

    Many of the challenges of life are group problems requiring collective effort to produce significant change. The strength of groups, organizations and even nations lies partly in people’s sense of collective efficacy that they can solve the problems they face and improve their lives through unified effort. People’s beliefs in their collective efficacy influence what they choose to do as a group, how much effort they put into it, their endurance when collective efforts fail to produce quick results, and their likelihood of success.

    Adaptive Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy Image
    Adaptive Benefits of Optimistic Self-Beliefs of Efficacy; Image from Pixabay.
  • Increase Your Strengthening Self-Efficacy

    Increase Your Strengthening Self-Efficacy

    What knows about strengthening self-efficacy? A range of strategies that can use by teachers to enhance self-efficacy has been identified. Strategies that teachers can use to influence self-efficacy include (a) goals and feedback, (b) rewards, (c) self-instruction for verbalization of strategies, (d) participant modeling, and (e) various combinations of these strategies.

    How to Increase Your Strengthening Self-Efficacy? Here is the article to explain.

    Keep in mind that self-efficacy, skill development, and strategy use go hand in hand; whether it be math problem solving, soccer skills, or expository writing. Students learn strategies that enable them to develop skills resulting in increased self-efficacy strengthening.

    Goals, Feedback, Rewards, and Verbalization

    Because task accomplishment is the most powerful source of self-efficacy information; an important approach is to use strategies that can strengthen task accomplishment. The strategies of goal setting, feedback, rewards, and self-talk or verbalization were used in various combinations to help students categorized as LD or remedial to strengthen self-efficacy.

    Schunk and Cox (1986) investigated the combination of strategy verbalization; and, effort feedback on the performance and self-efficacy of students with LD. While solving subtraction problems, students verbalized or said the task steps aloud to themselves; they were then given feedback that their successes were due to their effort. The combination of verbalization and effort feedback led to problem-solving successes, higher self-efficacy, and subtraction skills. The authors believed that the two strategies verbalization and effort feedback serve different purposes. Verbalization was useful for training students to systematically use the task strategy.

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    Giving students feedback that effort is responsible for success communicated that they are developing skills and that they can continue to perform well with hard work. The importance of feedback for enhancing self-efficacy may sometimes overlook by a teacher. Pajares and Johnson (1994) conducted a study in a language arts course for preservice teachers. The students received feedback from their teacher on attempting and completing writing tasks; but, they did not receive feedback on their specific writing skills.

    The end-of-course assessment revealed that, although the students improved on writing skills; their self-efficacy judgments about their skills did not increase. The authors concluded that when teachers note a growth or decline in skills (in this case, writing); they must give the students feedback about their specific skill development. As emphasized earlier, students will make future judgments not just on their actual skills; but, also on their perception of their competence in using the skill. These perceptions of self-efficacy are more likely to increase with specific teacher feedback.

    Participant Modeling

    Vicarious experience is the second most powerful source of self-efficacy. The most frequent form of vicarious experience for students is seeing a model (another student or teacher) perform a skill they are attempting to learn. Who is a more effective model, a peer or teacher, or a mastery or coping model?

    Peer or Teacher Model?

    Schunk and Hanson (1985) had students, ages 8 to 10, observe either a peer or teacher model solving fractions on a videotape. Children who had observed a peer model had higher self-efficacy and achievement scores on the math assessment than did students who had observed the teacher model. The authors concluded that the increase may have been because the children saw themselves as more similar to the peer model. The use of peer models is especially recommended for enhancement of self-efficacy among low-achieving students who are more doubtful about attaining the level of competence demonstrated by the teacher.

    Mastery or Coping Model?

    Which model do you think will be more effective in strengthening self-efficacy; an expert who demonstrates a high level of expertise or one who is competent, but demonstrates the strategies they used to acquire the skill? Previous research found that observer’s beliefs about competence influence by their perceived similarity incompetence to the model. Models can reflect either mastery or coping behaviors. A mastery model demonstrates a task at a high level of expertise with a high level of confidence. In contrast, a coping model demonstrates the task along with the difficulties students experienced and the strategies (e.g., effort) they used to overcome the difficulties. The effectiveness of coping versus mastery peer models was compared by Schunk et al.

    Types of models

    The two types of models demonstrated strategies as follows:

    1. Peer coping model; Made errors at first and verbalized negative statements that reflected self-efficacy (e.g., “I’m not sure I can do this”). The teacher then gave a prompt (e.g., “What do you do when denominators are the same?”). Next, the coping model made statements about how they overcame failure (e.g., “I need to pay attention to what I’m doing”) and eventually performed at a mastery level.
    2. Peer mastery models; Performed all problems correctly while working at the average rate. Verbalized high self-efficacy and ability (e.g., “I’m good at this.” “That was easy”).

    The findings indicated that the subjects judged themselves as more similar to the peer coping model. Students who observed the peer coping model demonstrated higher self-efficacy for learning, greater post-test self-efficacy, and skill development compared with those who observed a peer mastery model.

    Modeling is a resource that is readily available in the classroom. This is a case of positive social comparisons with others (Schunk, 2001). The important implication for teachers is to use caution in choosing peer models. An alert, the sensitive teacher can identify peer coping models in their classrooms and use them to strengthen the self-efficacy of many students.

    Increase Your Strengthening Self-Efficacy Image
    Increase Your Strengthening Self-Efficacy; Image from Pixabay.
  • What Are My Goals?

    What Are My Goals?

    What Are My Goals? Motivating Yourself!

    Begin your “learning to learn” course by asking students about their goals. Each year I find many differences in the abilities of students to articulate their goals. Some students have clear and well-defined goals. They know why they are in college and what they are attempting to attain. At the other end of the spectrum, some students have not even defined their personal goals and are not sure why they are in college. Some of your students who are raising families or who have returned to college after some absence appear to have more specific goals than do some students who come directly from high school.

    How would you explain this difference? Think about a musician, athlete, or businessperson who wants to excel in his or her area of expertise but has no specific goals to direct his or her behavior. It is very difficult to be motivated without personal goals. It is important to set goals in different life areas because such goals serve to motivate behavior.

    My Goals enhance performance in five major ways (Locke & Latham, 1990):

    Effort: The goals you set for yourself influence. What you attend to and how hard you try to maximize your performance. The more difficult the goal, the harder you are likely to work to attain it.

    Duration or persistence: When you work on a task without a goal, you are likely to allow your attention to drift. Become more easily interrupted, and even stop working without completing the task. When you have a goal in mind. You have a more clearly define point in the performance that defines. When it is time to quit or withdraw from the task (i.e., when the goal is attain).

    A direction of attention: Goals direct your performance toward the task at hand and away from unrelated or irrelevant tasks.

    Strategic planning: To accomplish a goal, you need to develop an action plan or strategy. Goal setting encourages strategic planning because the presence of a goal encourages you to decide how to proceed. What is My Goal Orientation? 

    Reference point: When you identify where it is you are head (i.e., have a goal) and receive feedback on where you are, you can evaluate your performance and determine. What further actions need to taken (if any). In fact, it is your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with this evaluation that may have the greatest impact on your motivation. What are Motivational Problems?

    Understanding of What Are My Goals; Have you identified some goals you would like to attain this term or year? If so, do you have goals in any of the following areas: academic, social, occupational, or personal? How has your success or failure in attaining previous goals influenced your motivation in different areas of your life?

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  • What are Effects of Goal Orientation on Student Achievement?

    What are Effects of Goal Orientation on Student Achievement?

    The extent to which students have a learning or performance goal orientation is associated with a variety of student behaviors and beliefs. These have been divided into cognitive strategies and engagement and motivational beliefs and actions.

    Cognitive Strategies and Engagement

    Learning goals foster cognitive engagement and effort (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988). Fifth- and sixth-grade science students who placed greater emphasis on learning goals also reported more active cognitive engagement. Students with performance goals (pleasing the teacher or seeking social recognition) had a lower level of cognitive engagement. Wolters, Yu, and Pintrich (1996) found that task value and interest were related to learning goals. The use of cognitive strategies and information processing is related to goal orientations of students at different levels of schooling. Learning that is potentially more meaningful or complex, requiring deep-level processing, appears to be the most vulnerable to the negative effects of performance goals (Graham & Golan, 1991). When the emphasis was on ability, as in the performance goal situation, there was interference with memory for tasks that required a great deal of cognitive effort. Performance goals also undermined the problem-solving strategies of children (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). In contrast, learning goals were the strongest predictor of seventh- and eighth-grade students’ cognitive strategy use (Wolters et al., 1996). These goals were also predictive of deep processing, persistence, effort, and exam performance of college students (Elliot, McGregor, & Gable, 1999).

    Motivational Beliefs and Actions

    The particular goal orientation affects motivation beliefs such as the role of effort in learning, self-efficacy beliefs, the tendency to use self-handicapping strategies, help seeking, and helpless patterns.

    Self-Efficacy: A learning goal orientation was generally found to be associated with higher self-efficacy. Wolters et al. (1996) reported that seventh- and eighth-grade students who reported greater endorsement of a learning goal also tended to report higher levels of self-efficacy. Learning goals were also positively related to self-efficacy in the subjects of writing and science (Pajares, Britner, & Valiante, 2000). In contrast, performance goals were related to low self-efficacy (Pintrich, Zusho, Schiefele, & Pekrun, 2001).

    Self-Handicapping: Self-handicapping strategies, such as low effort, are associated with performance goals (Midgley & Urden, 2001). Elliott and Dweck (1988) found that children with performance goals were more likely to avoid challenge and exhibit low persistence. These strategies undermine student achievement. Another type of self-handicapping strategy associated with performance goals is cheating (Anderman, Griesinger, & Westerfield, 1998). The authors explained that, by cheating, not only do students protect themselves against perceptions of low ability, they improve their grades.

    Help Seeking: The particular goal orientation was also found to influence help-seeking behaviors (Butler & Neuman, 1995). Second- and sixth-grade students were more likely to seek help when the task was presented to them as an opportunity to develop competence. When tasks were presented to students as a measure of their ability, they were less likely to seek help. Students were more likely to seek help in classrooms with a learning goal focus and to avoid help seeking in a performance goal structure (Butler & Neuman, 1995; Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998).

    Helpless Patterns: Finally, one of the most debilitating effects of performance goals is the vulnerability to helpless patterns (Dweck, 1986). Goals that focus students on using performances to judge their ability can make them vulnerable to a helpless pattern in the face of failure (Dweck & Sorich, 1999; Heyman & Dweck, 1992; Midgley et al., 2001).

    In conclusion, performance goal beliefs are generally seen as the most maladaptive pattern as students are more extrinsically motivated, focused on outcome and not on learning (C. Ames, 1992), and focused on being superior to others (Nicholls, 1990). At the same time, there is continued agreement that the learning goal pattern is the more adaptive one, fostering long-term achievement that reflects intrinsic motivation (C. Ames, 1992; Heyman & Dweck, 1992; Kaplan & Middleton, 2002; Meece, 1991; Midgley et al., 2001). As Kaplan and Middleton asked, “Should childhood be a journey or a race?”

  • Learning Development and Exercise of Self-Efficacy Over the Lifespan!

    Learning Development and Exercise of Self-Efficacy Over the Lifespan!

    Different periods of life present certain types of competency demands for successful functioning. These normative changes in required competencies with age do not represent lock-step stages through which everyone must inevitably pass. There are many pathways through life and, at any given period, people vary substantially in how efficaciously they manage their lives. The sections that follow provide a brief analysis of the characteristic developmental changes in the nature and scope of perceived self-efficacy over the course of the lifespan.

    Origins of a Sense of Personal Agency

    The newborn comes without any sense of self. Infants exploratory experiences in which they see themselves produce effects by their actions provide the initial basis for developing a sense of efficacy. Shaking a rattle produces predictable sounds, energetic kicks shake their cribs, and screams bring adults. By repeatedly observing that environmental events occur with action, but not in its absence, infants learn that actions produce effects. Infants who experience success in controlling environmental events become more attentive to their own behavior and more competent in learning new efficacious responses, than are infants for whom the same environmental events occur regardless of how they behave.

    Development of a sense of personal efficacy requires more than simply producing effects by actions. Those actions must be perceived as part of oneself. The self becomes differentiated from others through dissimilar experience. If feeding oneself brings comfort, whereas seeing others feed themselves has no similar effect, one’s own activity becomes distinct from all other persons. As infants begin to mature those around them refer to them and treat them as distinct persons. Based on growing personal and social experiences they eventually form a symbolic representation of themselves as a distinct self.

    Familial Sources of Self-Efficacy

    Young children must gain self-knowledge of their capabilities in broadening areas of functioning. They have to develop, appraise and test their physical capabilities, their social competencies, their linguistic skills, and their cognitive skills for comprehending and managing the many situations they encounter daily. Development of sensorimotor capabilities greatly expands the infants’ exploratory environment and the means for acting upon it. These early exploratory and play activities, which occupy much of children’s waking hours, provide opportunities for enlarging their repertoire of basic skills and sense of efficacy.

    Successful experiences in the exercise of personal control are central to the early development of social and cognitive competence. Parents who are responsive to their infants’ behavior, and who create opportunities for efficacious actions by providing an enriched physical environment and permitting freedom of movement for exploration, have infants who are accelerated in their social and cognitive development. Parental responsiveness increases cognitive competence, and infants’ expanded capabilities elicit greater parental responsiveness in a two-way influence. Development of language provides children with the symbolic means to reflect on their experiences and what others tell them about their capabilities and, thus, to expand their self-knowledge of what they can and cannot do.

    The initial efficacy experiences are centered in the family. But as the growing child’s social world rapidly expands, peers become increasingly important in children’s developing self-knowledge of their capabilities. It is in the context of peer relations that social comparison comes strongly into play. At first, the closest comparative age-mates are siblings. Families differ in number of siblings, how far apart in age they are, and in their sex distribution. Different family structures, as reflected in family size, birth order, and sibling constellation patterns, create different social comparisons for judging one’s personal efficacy. Younger siblings find themselves in the unfavorable position of judging their capabilities in relation to older siblings who may be several years advanced in their development.

    Broadening of Self-Efficacy Through Peer Influences

    Children’s efficacy-testing experiences change substantially as they move increasingly into the larger community. It is in peer relationships that they broaden self-knowledge of their capabilities. Peers serve several important efficacy functions. Those who are most experienced and competent provide models of efficacious styles of thinking and behavior. A vast amount of social learning occurs among peers. In addition, age-mates provide highly informative comparisons for judging and verifying one’s self-efficacy. Children are, therefore, especially sensitive to their relative standing among the peers in activities that determine prestige and popularity.

    Peers are neither homogeneous nor selected indiscriminately. Children tend to choose peers who share similar interests and values. Selective peer association will promote self-efficacy in directions of mutual interest, leaving other potentialities underdeveloped. Because peers serve as a major influence in the development and validation of self-efficacy, disrupted or impoverished peer relationships can adversely affect the growth of personal efficacy. A low sense of social efficacy can, in turn, create internal obstacles to favorable peer relationships. Thus, children who regard themselves as socially inefficacious withdraw socially, perceive low acceptance by their peers and have a low sense of self-worth. There are some forms of behavior where a high sense of efficacy may be socially alienating rather than socially affiliating. For example, children who readily resort to aggression perceive themselves as highly efficacious in getting things they want by aggressive means.

    School as an Agency for Cultivating Cognitive Self-Efficacy

    During the crucial formative period of children’s lives, the school functions as the primary setting for the cultivation and social validation of cognitive competencies. School is the place where children develop the cognitive competencies and acquire the knowledge and problem-solving skills essential for participating effectively in the larger society. Here their knowledge and thinking skills are continually tested, evaluated, and socially compared. As children master cognitive skills, they develop a growing sense of their intellectual efficacy. Many social factors, apart from the formal instruction, such as peer modeling of cognitive skills, social comparison with the performances of other students, motivational enhancement through goals and positive incentives, and teachers interpretations of children’s successes and failures in ways that reflect favorably or unfavorably on their ability also affect children’s judgments of their intellectual efficacy.

    The task of creating learning environments conducive to development of cognitive skills rests heavily on the talents and self-efficacy of teachers. Those who are have a high sense of efficacy about their teaching capabilities can motivate their students and enhance their cognitive development. Teachers who have a low sense of instructional efficacy favor a custodial orientation that relies heavily on negative sanctions to get students to study.

    Teachers operate collectively within an interactive social system rather than as isolates. The belief systems of staffs create school cultures that can have vitalizing or demoralizing effects on how well schools function as a social system. Schools in which the staff collectively judge themselves as powerless to get students to achieve academic success convey a group sense of academic futility that can pervade the entire life of the school. Schools in which staff members collectively judge themselves capable of promoting academic success imbue their schools with a positive atmosphere for development that promotes academic attainments regardless of whether they serve predominantly advantaged or disadvantaged students.

    Students’ belief in their capabilities to master academic activities affects their aspirations, their level of interest in academic activities, and their academic accomplishments. There are a number of school practices that, for the less talented or ill prepared, tend to convert instructional experiences into education in inefficacy. These include lock-step sequences of instruction, which lose many children along the way; ability groupings which further diminish the perceived self-efficacy of those cast in the lower ranks; and competitive practices where many are doomed to failure for the success of a relative few.

    Classroom structures affect the development of intellectual self-efficacy, in large part, by the relative emphasis they place on social comparison versus self-comparison appraisal. Self- appraisals of less able students suffer most when the whole group studies the same material and teachers make frequent comparative evaluations. Under such a monolithic structure students rank themselves according to capability with high consensus. Once established, reputations are not easily changed. In a personalized classroom structure, individualized instruction tailored to students’ knowledge and skills enables all of them to expand their competencies and provides less basis for demoralizing social comparison. As a result, students are more likely to compare their rate of progress to their personal standards than to the performance of others. Self-comparison of improvement in a personalized classroom structure raises perceived capability. Cooperative learning structures, in which students work together and help one another also tend to promote more positive self-evaluations of capability and higher academic attainments than do individualistic or competitive ones.

    Growth of Self-Efficacy Through Transitional Experiences of Adolescence

    Each period of development brings with it new challenges for coping efficacy. As adolescents approach the demands of adulthood, they must learn to assume full responsibility for themselves in almost every dimension of life. This requires mastering many new skills and the ways of adult society. Learning how to deal with pubertal changes, emotionally invested partnerships and sexuality becomes a matter of considerable importance. The task of choosing what lifework to pursue also looms large during this period. These are but a few of the areas in which new competencies and self-beliefs of efficacy have to be developed.

    With growing independence during adolescence some experimentation with risky behavior is not all that uncommon. Adolescents expand and strengthen their sense of efficacy by learning how to deal successfully with potentially troublesome matters in which they are unpracticed as well as with advantageous life events. Insulation from problematic situations leaves one ill-prepared to cope with potential difficulties. Whether adolescents foresake risky activities or become chronically enmeshed in them is determined by the interplay of personal competencies, self- management efficacy and the prevailing influences in their lives.

    Impoverished hazardous environments present especially harsh realities with minimal resources and social supports for culturally-valued pursuits, but extensive modeling, incentives and social supports for transgressive styles of behavior. Such environments severely tax the coping efficacy of youth enmeshed in them to make it through adolescence in ways that do not irreversibly foreclose many beneficial life paths.

    Adolescence has often been characterized as a period of psychosocial turmoil. While no period of life is ever free of problems, contrary to the stereotype of “storm and stress,” most adolescents negotiate the important transitions of this period without undue disturbance or discord. However, youngsters who enter adolescence beset by a disabling sense of inefficacy transport their vulnerability to distress and debility to the new environmental demands. The ease with which the transition from childhood to the demands of adulthood is made similarly depends on the strength of personal efficacy built up through prior mastery experiences.

    Self-Efficacy Concerns of Adulthood

    Young adulthood is a period when people have to learn to cope with many new demands arising from lasting partnerships, marital relationships, parenthood, and occupational careers. As in earlier mastery tasks, a firm sense of self-efficacy is an important contributor to the attainment of further competencies and success. Those who enter adulthood poorly equipped with skills and plagued by self-doubts find many aspects of their adult life stressful and depressing.

    Beginning a productive vocational career poses a major transitional challenge in early adulthood. There are a number of ways in which self-efficacy beliefs contribute to career development and success in vocational pursuits. In preparatory phases, people’s perceived self-efficacy partly determines how well they develop the basic cognitive, self-management and interpersonal skills on which occupational careers are founded. As noted earlier, beliefs concerning one’s capabilities are influential determinants of the vocational life paths that are chosen.

    It is one thing to get started in an occupational pursuit, it is another thing to do well and advance in it. Psychosocial skills contribute more heavily to career success than do occupational technical skills. Development of coping capabilities and skills in managing one’s motivation, emotional states and thought processes increases perceived self-regulatory efficacy. The higher the sense of self-regulatory efficacy the better the occupational functioning. Rapid technological changes in the modern workplace are placing an increasing premium on higher problem-solving skills and resilient self-efficacy to cope effectively with job displacements and restructuring of vocational activities.

    The transition to parenthood suddenly thrusts young adults into the expanded role of both parent and spouse. They now not only have to deal with the ever-changing challenges of raising children but to manage interdependent relationships within a family system and social links to many extrafamilial social systems including educational, recreational, medical, and caregiving facilities. Parents who are secure in their parenting efficacy shepherd their children adequately through the various phases of development without serious problems or severe strain on the marital relationship. But it can be a trying period for those who lack a sense of efficacy to manage the expanded familial demands. They are highly vulnerable to stress and depression.

    Increasing numbers of mothers are joining the work force either by economic necessity or personal preference. Combining family and career has now become the normative pattern. This requires management of the demands of both familial and occupational roles. Because of the cultural lag between societal practices and the changing status of women, they continue to bear the major share of the homemaking responsibility. Women who have a strong sense of efficacy to manage the multiple demands of family and work and to enlist their husbands’ aid with childcare experience a positive sense of well-being. But those who are beset by self-doubts in their ability to combine the dual roles suffer physical and emotional strain.

    By the middle years, people settle into established routines that stabilize their sense of personal efficacy in the major areas of functioning. However, the stability is a shaky one because life does not remain static. Rapid technological and social changes constantly require adaptations calling for self-reappraisals of capabilities. In their occupations, the middle-aged find themselves pressured by younger challengers. Situations in which people must compete for promotions, status, and even work itself, force constant self-appraisals of capabilities by means of social comparison with younger competitors.

    Reappraisals of Self-Efficacy With Advancing Age

    The self-efficacy issues of the elderly center on reappraisals and mis-appraisals of their capabilities. Biological conceptions of aging focus extensively on declining abilities. Many physical capacities do decrease as people grow older, thus, requiring reappraisals of self-efficacy for activities in which the biological functions have been significantly affected. However, gains in knowledge, skills, and expertise compensate some loss in physical reserve capacity. When the elderly is taught to use their intellectual capabilities, their improvement in cognitive functioning more than offsets the average decrement in performance over two decades. Because people rarely exploit their full potential, elderly persons who invest the necessary effort can function at the higher levels of younger adults. By affecting level of involvement in activities, perceived self- efficacy can contribute to the maintenance of social, physical and intellectual functioning over the adult life span.

    Older people tend to judge changes in their intellectual capabilities largely in terms of their memory performance. Lapses and difficulties in memory that young adults dismiss are inclined to be interpreted by older adults as indicators of declining cognitive capabilities. Those who regard memory as a biologically shrinking capacity with aging have low faith in their memory capabilities and enlist little effort to remember things. Older adults who have a stronger sense of memory efficacy exert greater cognitive effort to aid their recall and, as a result, achieve better memory.

    Much variability exists across behavioral domains and educational and socioeconomic levels, and there is no uniform decline in beliefs in personal efficacy in old age. The persons against whom the elderly compare themselves contribute much to the variability in perceived self-efficacy. Those who measure their capabilities against people their age are less likely to view themselves as declining in capabilities than if younger cohorts are used in comparative self-appraisal. Perceived cognitive inefficacy is accompanied by lowered intellectual performances. A declining sense of self-efficacy, which often may stem more from disuse and negative cultural expectations than from biological aging, can thus set in motion self-perpetuating processes that result in declining cognitive and behavioral functioning. People who are beset with uncertainties about their personal efficacy not only curtail the range of their activities but undermine their efforts in those they undertake. The result is a progressive loss of interest and skill.

    Major life changes in later years are brought about by retirement, relocation, and loss of friends or spouses. Such changes place demands on interpersonal skills to cultivate new social relationships that can contribute to positive functioning and personal well-being. Perceived social inefficacy increases older person’s vulnerability to stress and depression both directly and indirectly by impeding development of social supports which serve as a buffer against life stressors.

    The roles into which older adults are cast impose sociocultural constraints on the cultivation and maintenance of perceived self-efficacy. As people move to older-age phases most suffer losses of resources, productive roles, access to opportunities and challenging activities. Monotonous environments that require little thought or independent judgment diminish the quality of functioning, intellectually challenging ones enhance it. Some of the declines in functioning with age result from sociocultural dispossession of the environmental support for it. It requires a strong sense of personal efficacy to reshape and maintain a productive life in cultures that cast their elderly in powerless roles devoid of purpose. In societies that emphasize the potential for self-development throughout the lifespan, rather than psychophysical decline with aging, the elderly tend to lead productive and purposeful lives.

  • What is Efficacy of Activated Processes?

    What is Efficacy of Activated Processes?

    Much research has been conducted on the four major psychological processes through which self-beliefs of efficacy affect human functioning.

    Cognitive Processes

    The effects of self-efficacy beliefs on cognitive processes take a variety of forms. Much human behavior, being purposive, is regulated by forethought embodying valued goals. Personal goal setting is influenced by self-appraisal of capabilities. The stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the higher the goal challenges people set for themselves and the firmer is their commitment to them.

    Most courses of action are initially organized in thought. People’s beliefs in their efficacy shape the types of anticipatory scenarios they construct and rehearse. Those who have a high sense of efficacy, visualize success scenarios that provide positive guides and supports for performance. Those who doubt their efficacy, visualize failure scenarios and dwell on the many things that can go wrong. It is difficult to achieve much while fighting self-doubt. A major function of thought is to enable people to predict events and to develop ways to control those that affect their lives. Such skills require effective cognitive processing of information that contains many ambiguities and uncertainties. In learning predictive and regulative rules people must draw on their knowledge to construct options, to weight and integrate predictive factors, to test and revise their judgments against the immediate and distal results of their actions, and to remember which factors they had tested and how well they had worked.

    It requires a strong sense of efficacy to remain task oriented in the face of pressing situational demands, failures and setbacks that have significant repercussions. Indeed, when people are faced with the tasks of managing difficult environmental demands under taxing circumstances, those who are beset by self-doubts about their efficacy become more and more erratic in their analytic thinking, lower their aspirations and the quality of their performance deteriorates. In contrast, those who maintain a resilient sense of efficacy set themselves challenging goals and use good analytic thinking which pays off in performance accomplishments.

    Motivational Processes

    Self-beliefs of efficacy play a key role in the self-regulation of motivation. Most human motivation is cognitively generated. People motivate themselves and guide their actions anticipatorily by the exercise of forethought. They form beliefs about what they can do. They anticipate likely outcomes of prospective actions. They set goals for themselves and plan courses of action designed to realize valued futures.

    There are three different forms of cognitive motivators around which different theories have been built. They include causal attributions, outcome expectancies, and cognized goals. The corresponding theories are attribution theory, expectancy-value theory and goal theory, respectively. Self-efficacy beliefs operate in each of these types of cognitive motivation. Self-efficacy beliefs influence causal attributions. People who regard themselves as highly efficacious attribute their failures to insufficient effort, those who regard themselves as inefficacious attribute their failures to low ability. Causal attributions affect motivation, performance and affective reactions mainly through beliefs of self-efficacy.

    In expectancy-value theory, motivation is regulated by the expectation that a given course of behavior will produce certain outcomes and the value of those outcomes. But people act on their beliefs about what they can do, as well as on their beliefs about the likely outcomes of performance. The motivating influence of outcome expectancies is thus partly governed by self-beliefs of efficacy. There are countless attractive options people do not pursue because they judge they lack the capabilities for them. The predictiveness of expectancy-value theory is enhanced by including the influence of perceived self- efficacy.

    The capacity to exercise self-influence by goal challenges and evaluative reaction to one’s own attainments provides a major cognitive mechanism of motivation. A large body of evidence shows that explicit, challenging goals enhance and sustain motivation. Goals operate largely through self-influence processes rather than regulate motivation and action directly. Motivation based on goal setting involves a cognitive comparison process. By making self-satisfaction conditional on matching adopted goals, people give direction to their behavior and create incentives to persist in their efforts until they fulfill their goals. They seek self-satisfaction from fulfilling valued goals and are prompted to intensify their efforts by discontent with substandard performances.

    Motivation based on goals or personal standards is governed by three types of self-influences. They include self-satisfying and self-dissatisfying reactions to one’s performance, perceived self-efficacy for goal attainment, and readjustment of personal goals based on one’s progress. Self-efficacy beliefs contribute to motivation in several ways: They determine the goals people set for themselves; how much effort they expend; how long they persevere in the face of difficulties; and their resilience to failures. When faced with obstacles and failures people who harbor self-doubts about their capabilities slacken their efforts or give up quickly. Those who have a strong belief in their capabilities exert greater effort when they fail to master the challenge. Strong perseverance contributes to performance accomplishments.

    Affective Processes

    People’s beliefs in their coping capabilities affect how much stress and depression they experience in threatening or difficult situations, as well as their level of motivation. Perceived self-efficacy to exercise control over stressors plays a central role in anxiety arousal. People who believe they can exercise control over threats do not conjure up disturbing thought patterns. But those who believe they cannot manage threats experience high anxiety arousal. They dwell on their coping deficiencies. They view many aspects of their environment as fraught with danger. They magnify the severity of possible threats and worry about things that rarely happen. Through such inefficacious thinking they distress themselves and impair their level of functioning. Perceived coping self-efficacy regulates avoidance behavior as well as anxiety arousal. The stronger the sense of self-efficacy the bolder people are in taking on taxing and threatening activities.

    Anxiety arousal is affected not only by perceived coping efficacy but by perceived efficacy to control disturbing thoughts. The exercise of control over one’s own consciousness is summed up well in the proverb: “You cannot prevent the birds of worry and care from flying over your head. But you can stop them from building a nest in your head.” Perceived self-efficacy to control thought processes is a key factor in regulating thought produced stress and depression. It is not the sheer frequency of disturbing thoughts but the perceived inability to turn them off that is the major source of distress. Both perceived coping self-efficacy and thought control efficacy operate jointly to reduce anxiety and avoidant behavior.

    Social cognitive theory prescribes mastery experiences as the principal means of personality change. Guided mastery is a powerful vehicle for instilling a robust sense of coping efficacy in people whose functioning is seriously impaired by intense apprehension and phobic self-protective reactions. Mastery experiences are structured in ways to build coping skills and instill beliefs that one can exercise control over potential threats. Intractable phobics, of course, are not about to do what they dread. One must, therefore, create an environment so that incapacitated phobics can perform successfully despite themselves. This is achieved by enlisting a variety of performance mastery aids. Feared activities are first modeled to show people how to cope with threats and to disconfirm their worst fears. Coping tasks are broken down into subtasks of easily mastered steps. Performing feared activities together with the therapist further enables phobics to do things they would resist doing by themselves. Another way of overcoming resistance is to use graduated time. Phobics will refuse threatening tasks if they will have to endure stress for a long time. But they will risk them for a short period. As their coping efficacy increases the time they perform the activity is extended. Protective aids and dosing the severity of threats also help to restore and develop a sense of coping efficacy.

    After functioning is fully restored, the mastery aids are withdrawn to verify that coping successes stem from personal efficacy rather than from mastery aids. Self-directed mastery experiences, designed to provide varied confirmatory tests of coping capabilities, are then arranged to strengthen and generalize the sense of coping efficacy. Once people develop a resilient sense of efficacy they can withstand difficulties and adversities without adverse effects.

    Guided mastery treatment achieves widespread psychological changes in a relatively short time. It eliminates phobic behavior and anxiety and biological stress reactions, creates positive attitudes and eradicates phobic ruminations and nightmares. Evidence that achievement of coping efficacy profoundly affects dream activity is a particularly striking generalized impact.

    A low sense of efficacy to exercise control produces depression as well as anxiety. It does so in several different ways. One route to depression is through unfulfilled aspiration. People who impose on themselves standards of self-worth they judge they cannot attain drive themselves to bouts of depression. A second efficacy route to depression is through a low sense of social efficacy. People who judge themselves to be socially efficacious seek out and cultivate social relationships that provide models on how to manage difficult situations, cushion the adverse effects of chronic stressors and bring satisfaction to people’s lives. Perceived social inefficacy to develop satisfying and supportive relationships increases vulnerability to depression through social isolation. Much human depression is cognitively generated by dejecting ruminative thought. A low sense of efficacy to exercise control over ruminative thought also contributes to the occurrence, duration and recurrence of depressive episodes.

    Other efficacy-activated processes in the affective domain concern the impact of perceived coping self-efficacy on biological systems that affect health functioning. Stress has been implicated as an important contributing factor to many physical dysfunctions. Controllability appears to be a key organizing principle regarding the nature of these stress effects. It is not stressful life conditions per se, but the perceived inability to manage them that is debilitating. Thus, exposure to stressors with ability to control them has no adverse biological effects. But exposure to the same stressors without the ability to control them impairs the immune system. The impairment of immune function increases susceptibility to infection, contributes to the development of physical disorders and accelerates the progression of disease.

    Biological systems are highly interdependent. A weak sense of efficacy to exercise control over stressors activates autonomic reactions, catecholamine secretion and release of endogenous opioids. These biological systems are involved in the regulation of the immune system. Stress activated in the process of acquiring coping capabilities may have different effects than stress experienced in aversive situations with no prospect in sight of ever gaining any self-protective efficacy. There are substantial evolutionary benefits to experiencing enhanced immune function during development of coping capabilities vital for effective adaptation. It would not be evolutionarily advantageous if acute stressors invariably impaired immune function, because of their prevalence in everyday life. If this were the case, people would experience high vulnerability to infective agents that would quickly do them in. There is some evidence that providing people with effective means for managing stressors may have a positive effect on immune function. Moreover, stress aroused while gaining coping mastery over stressors can enhance different components of the immune system.

    There are other ways in which perceived self-efficacy serves to promote health. Lifestyle habits can enhance or impair health. This enables people to exert behavioral influence over their vitality and quality of health. Perceived self-efficacy affects every phase of personal change–whether people even consider changing their health habits; whether they enlist the motivation and perseverance needed to succeed should they choose to do so; and how well they maintain the habit changes they have achieved. The stronger the perceived self-regulatory efficacy the more successful people are in reducing health-impairing habits and adopting and integrating health-promoting habits into their regular lifestyle. Comprehensive community programs designed to prevent cardiovascular disease by altering risk-related habits reduce the rate of morbidity and mortality.

    Selection Processes

    The discussion so far has centered on efficacy-activated processes that enable people to create beneficial environments and to exercise some control over those they encounter day in and day out. People are partly the product of their environment. Therefore, beliefs of personal efficacy can shape the course lives take by influencing they types of activities and environments people choose. People avoid activities and situations they believe exceed their coping capabilities. But they readily undertake challenging activities and select situations they judge themselves capable of handling. By the choices they make, people cultivate different competencies, interests and social networks that determine life courses. Any factor that influences choice behavior can profoundly affect the direction of personal development. This is because the social influences operating in selected environments continue to promote certain competencies, values, and interests long after the efficacy decisional determinant has rendered its inaugurating effect.

    Career choice and development is but one example of the power of self-efficacy beliefs to affect the course of life paths through choice-related processes. The higher the level of people’s perceived self-efficacy the wider the range of career options they seriously consider, the greater their interest in them, and the better they prepare themselves educationally for the occupational pursuits they choose and the greater is their success. Occupations structure a good part of people’s lives and provide them with a major source of personal growth.

  • Help Seeking

    What do you understand by Help Seeking?

    Help seeking theory postulates that people follow a series of predictable steps to seek help for their inadequacies, it is a series of well-ordered and purposeful cognitive and behavioral steps, each leading to specific types of solutions.

    Help seeking theory falls into two categories where some consider similarity in the process’ (e.g. Cepeda-Benito & Short, 1998) while others consider it as dependent upon the problem (e.g. Di Fabio & Bernaud, 2008). In general help seeking behaviors are dependent upon three categories, attitudes (beliefs and willingness) towards help-seeking, intention to seek help, and actual help-seeking behavior.

    Helped A Dog Named Cheeseburger

    Do you ask for help when you need it or do you have the view, “I have to do it myself, no one can do it except me?” From a motivational perspective, help seeking is an adaptive cognitive strategy that indicates a striving for mastery and achievement (R. Ames, 1983; Karabenick, 1998; Newman, 1998) and a general problem-solving strategy (Nelson-Le Gall, 1985). If help seeking is an adaptive strategy, why do teachers observe that students

    who are most in need of help are often the most reluctant to seek help? We have learned from research that seeking help from others can have negative connotations (Newman, 1990, 1991).

    Help Seeking 00

    Help seeking may be seen as threatening if the student thinks it is a sign of low ability. In this case, there is a personal cost to seeking help: Students may feel incompetent. Help seeking is positive when students seek assistance in order to make a change in their learning. The attributional process is an important factor in whether help seeking is seen as positive or negative and consequently whether students attend academic help sessions. R. Ames and Lau (1982) identified factors that affected the extent that college students attend help sessions:

    • Low-performing students were more likely to attend help sessions if they were given specific positive information about the effects of the sessions (e.g., “students who attended improved their performance”).
    • Students who attributed success to effort were more likely to attend.
    • Students who did not seek help used more external attributions for failure, such as “tricky test questions,” and used these external reasons as excuses.

    Newman’s (1990, 1991) investigations of help seeking among children in Grades 3, 5, and 7 provided a fuller understanding of help seeking. For example, who seeks help, individuals with high or low self-esteem? For all grades, the higher the perceived competence of the children, the less they felt there were personal costs to help seeking (e.g., being thought of as low ability). Students with low self-esteem were especially unlikely to seek help, whereas those with high self-esteem were more likely to seek help. Similar results were obtained by Nelson-Le Gall and Jones (1990) for average-achieving African-American children. Newman (1991) also found differences between younger and older students in views about help seeking. Seventh graders were more aware than younger children that negative fallout might result from help seeking (e.g., embarrassment). However, older children were also more likely than younger ones to believe that smart classmates rather than “dumb” ones ask questions of the teacher. Help seeking by college students showed a pattern similar to that of children. Karabenick and Knapp (1991) found that students with low self-esteem were more threatened by seeking help.

    Help Seeking 01

    One important and perhaps surprising finding was that students who use more learning strategies are more likely to seek help when needed, whereas students who use fewer strategies are less likely to seek help when needed. This attitude presents a double bind for those needing help. Not only do they lack the necessary strategies for success, but they do not seek the needed study assistance. The authors concluded that students need to learn to judge when they need help and that help seeking should be included in learning strategy and motivation programs. These findings on help seeking are important for teachers and counselors so that they can plan ways to get students to attend help sessions or seek help in counseling when needed. Nelson-Le Gall (1985) emphasized the need to think of help seeking as an adaptive coping strategy rather than as a self-threatening activity. Some ways to accomplish this are listed in Strategy.

    Types of Help Seeking

    Help seeking behavior is divided into two types, adaptive behavior and non-adaptive behavior. It is adaptive when exercised to overcome a difficulty and it depends upon the person’s recognition, insight and dimension of the problem and resources for solving the same, this is valued as an active strategy. It is non-adaptive when the behavior persists even after understanding and experiencing the problem solving mechanism and when used for avoidance. Dynamic barriers in seeking help can also affect active process (e.g.: culture, ego, classism, etc.). Nelson-Le Gall (1981) distinguished between instrumental help-seeking, which she regarded as being essential for learning, and passive dependency.

    Strategy of Help Seeking

    • The overriding task is to have students view help seeking, when needed, as a smart move instead of a dumb one.
    • Establish a classroom climate where students are encouraged to ask questions.
    • Document attendance and improved performance as a result of the help sessions and show this to students.
    • Be sure students who have improved after attending help sessions attribute the improvement to the help sessions.
    • Teach students a self-talk script to practice asking teachers for help in classes where they were having problems, as one middle school teacher did.

  • Helpless

    What is a meaning of Helpless?

    Meaning of helpless: “Unable to defend oneself or to act without help.” A student who has a history of failure and does not expect this to change will attribute failure to ability an internal and stable factor. This pattern is characteristic of students classified as having learned helplessness. These individuals expect that their actions will be futile in affecting future outcomes. Consequently, they give up. Learned helplessness was first investigated in young animals who had been presented with inescapable electric shocks in one situation; when placed in a different situation, they failed to try to escape or avoid the shock (Seligman & Maier, 1967). Animals that demonstrated no connection between their activity and avoiding the shock had learned to be helpless. It was further hypothesized that humans responded the same way: they were passive in situations where they believed their actions would have no effect on what happens to them. In this original explanation, helplessness was viewed as global affecting all domains of one’s life. Later research found that people may experience helplessness in one situation and not in others (Alloy, Abramson, Peterson, & Seligman, 1984). This means that a student may feel helpless in learning math but not in learning history.

    Helplessness exists in achievement situations when students do not see a connection between their actions and their performance and grades. The important aspect of learned helplessness is how it affects the motivational behavior of students in the face of failure. The attributions a student makes for failure act as a bridge between a student’s willingness to try again and the student’s tendency to give up.

    Helpless and Mastery Orientation

    Helpless 02

    In a now-classic study, Diener and Dweck (1978) identified two patterns of responses to failure following success in problem-solving tasks: a maladaptive-helpless orientation and an adaptive-mastery orientation. Children showed different response patterns to failure in their thinking, self-talk, affect, and actions. Keep in mind that the students in the study had the same failure experience while performing the tasks, but there were two different patterns of response to the failure outcome. The thinking, self-talk, and actions of the helpless-oriented children formed a self-defeating pattern. When failure is attributed to lack of ability, there is a decline in performance. Attribution to lack of effort does not show this decline (Dweck & Goetz, 1978).

    Are there ability differences in learned helplessness? Butkowsky and Willows (1980) compared good, average, and poor readers. They found that poor readers had lower expectancies of success on a reading task. Poor readers overwhelmingly attributed their failures to lack of ability (68% compared with 13% for average readers and 12% for good readers). They took less responsibility for success, attributing success more to task ease an external cause than did the good and average readers. In the face of difficulty, poor readers became less persistent a self-defeating behavior. Helplessness was also found when children studied new material that required them to read passages with confusing concepts.

    In a study by Licht and Dweck (1984), half the children received material with a clear passage, and the other half received a confusing passage. There were no differences between mastery orientation and helpless orientation when the passage was clearly written. In contrast, when the passage was not clear, most of the mastery children reached the learning criterion, whereas only one third of the helpless children did. This investigation is important because some academic subjects, like math, are characterized by constant new learning, which may be initially confusing to students. Mastery students will not be discouraged by the initial difficulty, whereas helpless students immediately lose confidence although they may be equally competent. When teaching new material, teachers can be especially alert for this pattern of helplessness in the face of initial difficulty.

    Learned Helplessness and Students with Learning Disabilities

    Helpless 01

    Are some students more prone to experience a sense of helplessness? Students particularly susceptible to the pattern of learned helplessness are those students who are identified as having learning disabilities (LD) (Licht, 1983). Children with LD experience much failure over a long period of time on a variety of school tasks. As a result, these children come to doubt their academic abilities, with the accompanying belief that nothing they can do will help them be successful. This is followed by the self-defeating response of decreasing effort. Children with LD have been found to exhibit the following characteristics of the learned helplessness pattern (Licht, 1983):

    • Score lower than non-LD children on measures of self-esteem and perceptions of ability,
    • Are more likely to attribute difficulty with tasks to lack of ability,
    • Are less likely to attribute failure to insufficient effort, and
    • Lower their expectations for future success and display greater decline in expectation following failure.

    It is important for teachers to be aware of the characteristics of helplessness because learned helplessness may explain the students’ apparent lack of motivation. How can a teacher identify a helpless pattern? What can a teacher do to lessen the likelihood of helplessness and help students who have this tendency? Butkowsky and Willows (1980) suggested that educators must begin to rethink failure as a necessary component of the learning process and not as a damaging experience to be avoided.

    Does the pattern of learned helplessness show up in young children? Dweck and Sorich (1999) concluded that there is clear evidence of a helplessness pattern in children younger than age 8. After experiencing failure or criticism, they show signs of helplessness like self-blame, lowered persistence, and lack of constructive strategies. Mastery-oriented children, in contrast, assumed they were still good even when their work had errors, and believed they could improve through effort. An important implication for parents and teachers, according to the authors, is to be very cautious when giving feedback to children. Extremely positive or negative feedback can be detrimental to children’s beliefs about their competence.

  • Attribution and Motivation Among Ethnicity

    Understanding of Attribution and Motivation Among Ethnicity?

    What is Ethnicity? Meaning of Ethnicity “The fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.” Some about of Ethnic; Relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition. Relating to national and cultural origins. Denoting origin by birth or descent rather than by present nationality. Characteristic of or belonging to a non-Western cultural tradition.

    An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities, such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences. Unlike other social groups (wealth, age, hobbies), ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives. In some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, and physical appearance.

    Ethnic groups, derived from the same historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages and share a similar gene pool. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is sometimes possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group and become part of another (except for ethnic groups emphasizing racial purity as a key membership criterion).

    Ethnicity is often used synonymously with ambiguous terms such as nation or people. In English, it can also have the connotation of something exotic (cf. “White ethnic”, “ethnic restaurant”, etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the founding population of an area was established.

    Now reading – Attribution and Motivation Among Ethnicity; Do attributional explanations for success and failure act as an important motivational force in different ethnic groups? According to Graham (1989,1994), because attributional theory considers the role of thought in determining behavior, it is particularly fruitful in examining motivation in different cultures and ethnic groups.

    Beliefs About Effort and Ability

    Are attributional belief patterns similar among different ethnic groups? A comparison of poor African-American, Hispanic, Indo-Chinese, and White fifth- and sixth-grade students found similar attribution patterns for all groups (Bempechat, Nakkula, Wu, & Ginsberg, 1996). All groups rated ability as the most important factor for success in math. In a subsequent study comparing African-American, Hispanic, Indo-Chinese, and White fifthand sixth-graders, Bempechat, Graham, and Jimenez (1999) found cultural similarities as well as cultural specifics. For all ethnic groups, failure was attributed to lack of ability and success to external factors. In contrast, Indo-Chinese students had stronger beliefs that failure was due to lack of effort. Attribution for failure due to lack of ability is a problem for all students because it is believed to be uncontrollable.

    Graham (1984) compared middle- and low-SES African-American and White students on attributions for failure following a problem-solving task. The middle-class children in both ethnic groups were more likely to attribute failure to lack of effort and maintained consistently higher expectancies for success after experiencing failure. For both groups, this is indicative of an adaptive attributional pattern following failure, similar to that found in research by Diener and Dweck (1978). The findings of this research are important because they demonstrate the positive motivation pattern of African-American students—a pattern that has received little attention.

    Stevenson and Lee (1990) compared beliefs of American and Asian students concerning the role of effort and ability for success in mathematics. They asked mothers in Minnesota, Japan, and Taiwan to assign 10 points among ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck to rank their importance in academic success and school performance. All the mothers assigned the points in the same rank order: (1) effort, (2) ability, (3) task, and (4) luck. American mothers scored ability and effort as about equal. In contrast, Taiwanese and Japanese mothers assigned effort a higher value than ability. Peak (1993) noted that, in Japanese elementary schools, ability is rarely mentioned, whereas effort is consistently portrayed as key to success. In contrast, in the United States, students who try very hard are often labeled nerd or grind.

    These perceptions of effort and ability take on increased importance when homework is considered in the context of effort. Japanese and Chinese students spend at least twice the amount of time and effort on homework than do American students (Stevenson & Lee, 1990). American teachers assign less and consider it less valuable. Peak (1993) pointed out that homework reflects teachers’ beliefs on whether extra practice makes a difference and whether students are willing to engage in extra effort on behalf of their studies. American parents do not appear to consider good study habits as critical to academic success as do Asian parents.

    Implications for Teachers

    What can teachers draw from the attributional beliefs among different ethnic groups in terms of classroom practice? The important issue is to understand the motivational processes, such as attribution, operating within a particular ethnic group (Bempechat et al., 1996; Graham, 1994). When similarities are found across ethnic groups, educational interventions do not necessarily have to be targeted to children differentially based on their ethnic group membership.

    Graham (1989) emphasized the importance of teacher feedback in influencing concepts of ability and expectations of minority, low-SES students. Recall the previous discussion of indirect attributional cues. It is important to be aware of feedback that may indirectly convey to students that they have low ability. Graham (1994) suggested that in view of the number of African- American children in negative educational situations, it is especially important to be sensitive to how minorities feel, think, and act in response to non-attainment of goals.