Meeting students halfway: Increasing self-efficacy and promoting knowledge change in astronomy

Abstract

Two motivational factors-self-efficacy and interest-may be especially relevant to deepening students' understanding of astronomy. We examined the relationship between students' self-efficacy for, interest in learning about, and changes in their knowledge of stars, as measured by the Star Properties Concept Inventory (SPCI). Approximately 700 undergraduate students taking introductory astronomy responded to surveys at the start and end of their semester-long course. A sequential multiple regression analysis showed that self-efficacy post explains an appreciable percentage of variance in SPCI posttest scores, more than twice the percentage explained by all the pretest variables (SPCI, self-efficacy, and interest) combined. Knowledge and self-efficacy improved significantly over instruction; interest did not. Follow-up analyses revealed that instructors whose classes increased in self-efficacy also had the greatest increases in knowledge scores. Interviews with these instructors suggest they provide their students with more opportunities for mastery experiences with elaborated, performance-related feedback, as well as strong positive verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences through peer instruction. Through increased understanding of the relationship between motivational constructs (e.g., self-efficacy, interest) and knowledge, we can both improve our models and better inform instruction.

Enhancing Volunteers’ Intention to Engage in Citizen Science: The Roles of Self-Efficacy, Satisfaction and Science Trust

“…Moreover, the second hypothesis was that self-efficacy would have a direct impact on the intention to volunteer for future science service activities. This finding is in accordance with those of Bailey et al (2017) and Ucar and Sungur (2017), who found that students' higher self-efficacy in science led them to be more passionate about future science-based activities. Usually, if individuals can conduct science experiments during their Science Volunteer activities, they will continue to serve as Science Volunteers in the future.…”

“…In a theoretical discussion of the creation of new ventures based on an interpretation of these results, it was found that Satisfaction had the highest scores in the current research and differed markedly from the other variables in the traditional SCCT model as found by other researchers (Bailey et al, 2017;Ucar & Sungur, 2017) who have suggested that Self-efficacy is the most significant predictor and the major component of the SCCT model. One possible reason for this is that our data only included a small portion of volunteers in the Science Volunteer Program, which may reinforce the result that satisfaction is higher than in other studies.…”

“…That is, when people judge their own ability to complete a task, their performance in attaining their goals can be increased. This proposition has been confirmed by research which has found that it is important to examine the construct of self-efficacy in order to understand students' intention to promote science (Bailey, Lombardi, Cordova, & Sinatra, 2017;Ucar & Sungur, 2017). In a voluntary environment, this means that the more favorable a volunteer's self-efficacy, the stronger the volunteer's intention to perform a certain behavior would tend to be.…”

Damage caused by women’s lower self-efficacy on physics learning

“…During problem solving, students with high self-efficacy interpret the struggle as an opportunity for developing their skills while those with low self-efficacy may view the challenge as a large hurdle and further evidence of their lack of competence in the subject [20]. When encountering challenging activities, students with low self-efficacy become less interested, spend less effort and time, and eventually disengage from the class [23]. These behaviors act as a barrier to learning and development.…”

Investigating the role of prior preparation and self-efficacy on female and male students’ introductory physics course achievements

“…Another study also showed that some of the central motivational constructs, such as interest or perception of recognition can be related to self-efficacy and they can all contribute to students' retention [17]. Likewise, the higher the students' self-efficacy in a particular learning activity, the more perseverance and resilience they are likely to show when faced with adversity [18].When encountering challenging activities, students with low self-efficacy become less interested, make less effort and time, and eventually disengage from the class [19]. These behaviors act as a barrier to learning and development.…”