Understanding Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation in Students

Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation Essay Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments (Bandura, 1997). Self-efficacy works hand-in-hand with a student’s abilities to have self-control in their motivation, behavior and their social environment. In the classroom self-efficacy will be present in situations involving their overall behaviors and learning achievements. A student with good self-efficacy will show a good conscience when making decisions on their behavior, time management, and effort given throughout the course work that is given to them. This will be a case to case situation as everyone is different, but also will depend on the age of the

Both of these theories have a common component, having a task or goal. Self-efficacy is the thought of how to work effectively for the goal or task, whereas self-regulation is the process of thinking it through emotionally and with behavior. The end goal for both of these theories is for the student to be taking steps in reaching a goal or task, and being efficient in doing so. Self-efficacy is the measurable task portion of receiving or reaching the goal, and self-regulation deals with the emotional behavior side of the process. One with out the other simply makes reaching the goal harder, and in some cases impossible. Specifically, in a classroom, if a teacher has a student who knows the steps to complete a math lesson, and they know all the facts and numbers inside and out, but does not have proper behavior, the task may never get fully completed. Whereas if the student was well behaved in that they had self-control to contain their emotions, they could succeed at great