Self-efficacy, covid-19 anxiety, and achievement motivation for employees who can not work from home in pandemic times

Abstract

Covid-19 has caused nationwide anxiety, many initiatives have been created to suppress the spread of covid-19, but the anxiety of contracting the virus is certainly undeniable, especially for employees who cannot leave their jobs and do not have the luxury to do work from home. However, the anxiety that arises can be overcome by the presence of efficacy and motivation of each individual. Individuals with high self-efficacy beliefs will be more persistent and adaptable to new obstacles (Bandura, 1994). Furthermore, Wood & Bandura (in Staples et al) stated that individuals' self-efficacy beliefs also influence their level of motivation, which is reflected in how much effort they will put in and how long it will last. Individuals who have high achievement motivation, when faced with complex tasks and challenges tend to do well (McClelland, 1975). Therefore, achievement motivation is a crucial factor, especially during this pandemic.This study aims to empirically measure the role of self-efficacy, anxiety about COVID-19, and achievement motivation for employees who cannot work from home during the pandemic. This study uses 3 scales, self-efficacy is measured by the general self-efficacy scale which has a reliability of 0.86. Anxiety about COVID-19 is measured by the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the reliability of this scale is 0.88. While achievement motivation uses a revised version of the Achievement Motivation Scale which consists of 2 dimensions, hope of success (HS) and fear of failure (FF), with the reliability of HS 0.71 and FF 0.79. The sampling technique used is purposive sampling. This research involves 290 workers from the various industrial sectors, the majority were workers from the retail trade and health sector that were not possible to do their jobs from home. The results show that self-efficacy and anxiety about COVID-19 together have a very significant effect on achievement motivation. Individuals who have high self-efficacy will have high achievement motivation. Then if individuals were not too anxious about COVID-19, there will also be an increase in achievement motivation