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- Vol 4 RE: Chapter 12
- Vol 4 TE: App C
social cognitive theoryself-efficacygoal-directed activitymastery experiencesoutcome expectationsproximal goalsself-regulationJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Schunk and DiBenedetto review motivation through Bandura’s social cognitive theory, defining it as processes that initiate and sustain goal-directed activity. Human functioning reflects reciprocal interactions among personal factors, behavior, and environment, while agency enables people to set goals, anticipate outcomes, monitor action, and regulate conditions.
Key ideas
Self-efficacy—beliefs about capability for a particular task—has a central role because it affects choice, effort, persistence, strategy use, and responses to difficulty. Efficacy develops through mastery experiences, social models, credible persuasion, and interpretations of emotional and physiological states. Goals, outcome expectations, values, and self-evaluation operate with efficacy in cyclical self-regulation. Teachers can strengthen motivation through attainable proximal goals, informative progress feedback, models that students perceive as relevant, strategy instruction, and opportunities for successful performance.
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The authors emphasize that efficacy is context-specific and is not the same as general confidence, actual skill, or an assurance of success.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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