Mike Sulkowski
Psy370 School Psychology
Sulkowsm@Canisius.edu
History/Psychology major
Going to the University of Florida--
PhD in School Psychology
The relationship between self-efficacy on student outcomes in educational settings
From a constructivist perspective, we shape how we think about our own experiences, which in turn, influences how we will act in the future and respond to experiences. If we have positive past experiences of being able to manifest desired outcomes, we may generalize those experiences to the future and intrepidly attempt novel tasks. However, if someone has strong misgivings about the past and their ability to engage in a new challenge, they might harbor self-defeating thoughts that undermine their performance potential; inhibit future attempts, and stunt personal growth.
What is eluded is how a person’s level of self-efficacy can determine their willingness to engage in new experiences, profit from them, and continue to grow as a student. As famously described in the nursery story about the little engine that could—“I think I can, I think I can”—people’s perceptions of their self-efficacy often lead to the common self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon, which then, further reinforces set cognitive thought patterns.
By considering all of this, I realized how important self-efficacy is to the educational outcomes of students, as it seems impossible for someone to achieve without the will to do so. Even from my own experiences, it seemed clear that my beliefs precipitated or at least portended how successful I would be at accomplishing something. In short, if I felt confident in my abilities to be successful, I generally was, however, if I felt inadequate in some respect, usually that also became the case. Of course, something as complex as academic achievement cannot be reduced to a single construct like self-efficacy, but as it seems likely that a relationship exists between these two variables, I will let the research speak for itself.
Regarding my preliminary research using PYSCH INFO, I have already found a wealth of information that seem related to the topic and based on empirical principles. Some keywords that proved most effective include self-efficacy, self-efficacy for learning, academic self-efficacy, school performance, and school engagement.
Some articles that I have already perused are: Lodewyk & Winne, Relations Among the Structure of Learning Tasks, Achievement, and Changes in Self-Efficacy in Secondary Students, Caraway, Reinke, Hall, & Tucker, Self-Efficacy, Goal Orientation, and Fear of failure as Predictors of School Engagement in high School Students, & Academic Self-Efficacy among African American Youth: Implications for School Social Work practice.
Research: Going backward to move forward
Well, as expected, in order to move forward in my research into self-efficacy, I had to go backward and try to get to the core of the issue. Inevitably, this line of inquiry prompted me to read a number of articles undertaken by Albert Bandura and various colleagues, which have greatly expanded my understanding of the topic. In addition to just focusing on how someone’s academic efficacy relates to an educational outcome, Bandura reports how self-efficacy in related domains mediates the same. He looks parental efficacy, or how well they think they can influence the educational outcomes of their children, sex differences and various types of efficacy, and even the impact of socioeconomic determinates on children’s perceptions of their occupational efficacy. Overall, all of Bandura’s studies are well structured, clearly delineated, and incorporate a wealth of related research and his most important point seems to be that self-efficacy is domain specific. Therefore, with regard to academics, one person might be very confident in being able to read and understand class material but doubt and cripple their ability to relay it to the class.
More progress
Now that have read ten articles it is time to begin writing. However, before I set to this task, I want to make some general statements about self-efficacy and the articles as a whole. First, Albert Bandura is truly the innovator in this area of research as he is the most prolific publisher, innovator, and commonly cited person in others papers. His experiments are thorough, well organized, and tend to investigate many factors concomitantly. For instance, in one study he explored the paths of influence of students’ self-efficacy beliefs as shapers of their career aspirations. He also looked at how other factors such as parental self-efficacy, (parents’ assessment about their ability to influence their children’s behavior) and familial socioeconomic status could mediate career efficacy. What is important to note is that Bandura considers self-efficacy as related to a specific task or challenge and not to a broad domain, and because of this, he measured occupational efficacy by asking students about how well they think they could perform in many different roles ranging from blue-collar to professional positions.
Other researchers frequently mentioned include Barry Zimmerman, and Frank Pajares. Zimmerman’s work often focuses on how self-efficacy relates to areas of competence outside of academic functioning, but Pajares tends to research children’s metacognitive assessments of their ability to succeed on a given task. Essentially, how well they think they can do at something verses how well they can actually perform.
Overall, it seems to me that over the last twenty years a good deal of research has already been done on self-efficacy but much more still needs to be discovered. If one agrees with Bandura’s outlook, that efficacy related to specific tasks; generalizations are hard to make about populations, subgroups of people, or domains of knowledge. Actually, just by appealing to common sense, it is impossible to argue against his position, as it is common occurrence for a person to be strong and confident in one respect and weak and diffident in another. Just consider how some people have well-developed writing competencies but fear and loath math, or vice versa.
To me, self-efficacy seems to be the stop-gate mechanism that either allows or precludes an action from being undertaken. The implications are limitless; anything from diving into a pool to attempting a dissertation is subsumed by our perceptions of being able to successfully accomplish the task. Simply stated, we do not do that which we think that we are not capable of doing.
Self-efficacy is often lumped with other motivational factors like Rotter’s locus of control or self-esteem, but this is problematic, because as already stated, self-efficacy determines these factors with respect to goal achievement. One’s perceptions of having control, or being able to exercise power in the environment, do have profound implications as to whether an action will be carried out, but these perceptions really come from how efficacious one perceives themselves to be. Regarding self-esteem, people’s perceptions about their intrinsic value often stem from their abilities to succeed and/or their cognitive beliefs thereof; essentially, how efficacious they are to succeed in pertinent endeavors and how much control they have over their lives.
These differences seem to be reflected in many of the studies that I am researching. Particularly when discrepancies exist between academic efficacy and other levels of functioning related to motivation, confidence, and efficacy in other domains.
PSY370 Interview Questions:
This afternoon (2/7) I interviewed Mrs. Jill Waite, a local School Psychologist who works at Williamsville East High School. After receiving her B.A. in psychology from Canisius College, Mrs. Waite matriculated in the Eds. School Psychology program at UB where she graduated and completed an internship in the Orchard Park school system. Shortly thereafter, her career began at East where she has continued to practice for the past four years.
Prior to the interview, I prepared a list of questions; some were required; some were my own, and some derived from group work in class. However, once the dialogue began the questions only helped to facilitate the direction of the conversation, which quickly went in a direction all its own. Essentially, Mrs. Waite was so affable and knowledgeable that conversing was effortless and natural. I told her that the interview would take no more than thirty minutes of her time, but at the upshot of the meeting, over an hour passed and we could have gone on even longer.
The following questions were posed in various forms, although; the exact wording and order of them was altered due to the natural flow of conversation. Essentially, I preferred to proceed through free discourse as opposed to an inquisitive and contrived interlocution.
Below each question, Jill Waite’s thoughtful responses are listed:
Q: Which providers of services in the community do you use for outside referrals?
A: Since Williamsville is a large district with a lot of internal services and in-house services, only exceptional cases merit outside referrals. Sometimes are referred to neurophysiological specialists; on extremely rare occasions students may receive services or placements at the Renaissance House, Compass House, or Catholic Charities.
Q: What special intervention services do you offer in your building(s) that you think are particularly effective?
A: At East each academic school department runs a clinic for students in need of extra help. This allows for motivated students to keep pace with their peers and allows for teacher collaboration. A study skills program is also offered as well as a reading center directed by a literacy specialist. Some students who have trouble staying on task may be required to attend these services along with mandatory teacher-directed study halls.
Q: What outside agency educational programs does the district use? Any impressions on their strengths and weaknesses?
A. As a last resort, students may be sent to outside programs. In the case of East, every student with problem related to behavior dropped out shortly after leaving the school. [Mrs. Waite stated that this could be due to a number of factors, most noticeably: the quality of the students e.g. their drive, motivation, ect]. Some programs that students attend include the Falk School, Baker Victory, and 8-1 out of district programs like the one offered at Maryvale.
Q: What is a typical day like for you?
A: Every day is different! I will plan the whole day out in advance and then when I come in things happen, people need me, and by the end of the day I accomplish nothing that I set out to beforehand. Parents will call; faculty will drop in; assessments will have to be done, I guess the most consistent thing about my routine is answering e-mail. Every day I get over seventy messages from different people that require my attention.
Q: What are common issues that you confront while dealing with students?
A: Testing for special education, IEP’s, IEP meetings, and behavioral issues. Since there is a full-time social worker employed by East, I focus more on academic issues than parties, drinking, and substance abuse problems. If a problem student is disrupting the learning environment of other students, that’s when I get involved . . .
Q: How much time do you spend on assessments, consultations, and interventions?
A: Since I work in a high school a lot of information is already known about the students by this time so I do not do as much psychometric testing as other School Psychologists. However, I do a lot of classroom observations [this is particularly effective at East because of the fact that the school has no walls]. I will usually observe a student during every class period—often several times—before making decisions or working out interventions. Regarding consultation, I do a whole lot of that! I commonly work with parents, teachers, administration, and direct CSE meetings.
Q: What tests/assessment procedures do you feel work the best?
A: Since I rarely do initial referrals at the high school level, I tend to focus on IEP’s record reviews, standard cognitive measures, academic tests and measures, [reading & standardized tests] and functional behavior measures. These measures—in conjunction with teacher’s comments and insight—allow me to make informed decisions.
Q: How much travel do you do on a daily basis?
A: Very little, unless I have to visit one of my students who attends another district. When a student who lives in the district chooses to attend somewhere else they are still under my direction and receive services as needed.
Q: Are there times when it is hard for you to keep information about a child confidential?
A: Yes and no, I take a hardnosed approach to issues of confidentiality. Sometimes students will have issues they are dealing with and their teachers misconstrue the problems and I wish that I could explain the situation but I have to maintain professional standards. Often, just saying something like; “their really dealing with a lot” can get the point across—but not all the time. Between the counselors and social workers we have our own way of exchanging information while maintaining confidentiality. We might say: “I was reading in a journal and . . . how would you handle that situation?”
Q: Did your graduate training provide you with the skills necessary to enter the profession?
A: Not exactly, the program provided a theoretical framework that was not always applicable in the real world. Some of the useful training was in tests and assessments which translated well, but I probably learned the most from my internship. Things at UB have changed considerably since I attended there and now I think things have gotten better as more faculty members have been added to the program.
Q: How much has the field of school psychology changed since you first began to practice?
A: Not all that much, I have been in the field for about four years so that’s not a very long time. With IDEA and new legislation things seem to be in the process of changing as the roles of School Psychologists continue to expand. It is definitely a dynamic field, you need to be multifaceted and flexible as ever day is different. What is great is that you can really tailor your job around your unique styles, skills, and assets as a professional.
Q: Are you satisfied with your profession?
A: Like any career there are good and bad days but overall, I am happy as a school psychologist. You have to be original and creative as unique challenges confront you on a daily basis. I feel that I am successful at meeting these demands and can take pride in my work and the nature of helping students to succeed. All-in-all it’s all about looking at the big picture and when I do it’s a wonderful view.
CategoryUsers
The following 2 pages belong to MikeSulkowski:
Psy370Spring2006
Psy370Spring2006Interviews
Psy370GradInterviewGuide
