Student Self Efficacy

Student self-efficacy is important to be nurtured in the class. This article explores two strategies that can help.

What is student self-efficacy?

The education hub defines it as: “Self-efficacy is the judgement that a person makes about their own capability to achieve a future task. High self-efficacy is the confidence or strength of belief that one can learn and experience success in learning. Students tend to avoid tasks that exceed their ability and seek tasks at which they can succeed. Therefore, self-efficacy judgement affect which activities students choose or avoid, how much effort they put in, how much resilience they have, and how long they persist with a task”.

We have all seen students who move to a task and who avoid it. As a former Maths teacher, I have seen more students running away from the subject than towards it. "I can not do it", is what I would hear again and again.

Why do we need it?

Self-efficacy is believing in oneself. Believing in oneself is what leads to greater success for oneself based on clear judgement calls. Kendra Cherry says, “Self-efficacy, or your belief is your own abilities to deal with various situations, can play a role in not only how you feel about yourself, but whether or not you successfully achieve your goals in life”.

If I can do something that makes a student believe that "I can do Maths", a thought pattern that breaks the conditioned "I can not", then that is a big victory for me.

2 strategies that help

 “I cringe when I hear teachers say, “I teach math.” No! We do not teach math; we teach math to students! Caring about students is far more than just warm and fuzzy sentiment”, (Harris, 2005, p.46). To care is to create a classroom where students improve in self-efficacy.

For this I have used some strategies, two of which are explained below.

“To perform like a team, act like a team—together”, (Harris, 2005, p.23)

Collaborative work is a norm in my class. Students often get together for tasks. They could be solving a set of problems, research or a project. For example, (Kochar, M) displays an example of students working in groups to do research in Maths.

My reasons for using collaborative work are many:

1.    Students learn from each other.

2.    They learn to work in a team.

3.    It supports inclusion in classroom.

4.    I get a breather as a teacher!

As per centre for teacher education, “Research shows that educational experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to deeper learning” .

Create groups that are mixed. A good student models a way of working that brushes off a weak student. A student good in English sorts out the meaning of the problem so all can solve. Ultimately it leads to greater confidence everywhere.

"Collaborative teaming among specialists can enhance educational success by leveraging resources and building capacity to maximize effectiveness". C.L.Emmons

“Acknowledge That Students Are Multidimensional”, (Harris, 2005, p.29)

Dr.Mel Levine brought in the idea of ‘Affinity Leverage’. Bringing in the classrooms several affinities that the students might be having. I take this to heart and combine Maths with as many different subjects or affinities as possible. I bring poetry, art, music, sports etc to create lessons that respect the multi dimension-ality of the students. This is the one thing that has helped me to reduce fear of Maths in the students. A lot of the creative ideas are on my blog.

I am very aware of the fact that students hate or fear Maths and use these strategies consciously being sensitive to the students. “Sensitive teachers respect students and care as much about how they make students feel as they care about teaching academics” (Harris, 2005, p.49). The feelings of fear are an important acknowledgement and affinity helps curtail them. The result is students are ready to learn the subject and that leads to self-efficacy in the long run.

This is fabulous as a strategy for the weaker students, who may be weak in Maths but great in other subjects. Each student gets a ‘hook’ in the form of music or art or history to reach the Maths concepts. Once hooked, growth is inevitable.

For each of wants to grow. We just need the right channel to go through.

Monica Kochar