1.2.5 ACADEMIC SELF-EFFICACY AMONG ADOLESCENTS
In both the schools and the larger society, the onset of adolescence marks a profound shift in expectations regarding students' ability to assume responsibility for their functioning. When students enter middle or junior high schools, they are no longer under the direct control of a single teacher but instead are taught by a number of teachers in different classrooms, often with different classmates. These adolescents are expected to personally manage these diverse requirements for learning in class or to seek out help when it is needed, especially from their teachers. At this middle level of schooling, a significant part of students' academic work is completed outside of class, including reading
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Self-efficacy has been associated frequently with stress in students and is defined by (Bandura ,1986) as a belief in one's capability or skill to attain a particular goal or execute a particular behavior. Bandura proposed that self-efficacy can explain, not only the choice or level at which an activity is pursued, but as well, the likelihood of successful completion of the activity. Self-efficacy has been found to have a significant negative correlation to level of stress (Hackett, Betz, Casas, & Rocha-Singh, 1992; Newby-Fraser & Schlebusch, 1997), suggesting that those who have a higher self-efficacy also report a lower level of …show more content…
In a number of studies, self-efficacy and stress among college students have been consistently shown to have moderate to strong negative correlations (Gigliotti and Huff, 1995; Hackett et al., 1992; Solberg, Hale, Villarreal, and Kavanagh, 1993; Solberg and Villarreal, 1997; Torres and Solberg, 2001). While social cognitive theory provides a coherent framework linking self-efficacy and stress, most research has explored their independent roles in explaining academic outcomes. Very little work has examined their joint influence as determinants of academic success in college. (Hackett et al., 1992) identified both perceived stress and academic self-efficacy as predictors of cumulative grade-point average (GPA) for traditional students enrolled in engineering schools. Good grades were associated with low perceived stress and high self-efficacy. Focusing more specifically on math performance among high school students, (Pajares and Kranzler, 1995) concluded that mathematics self-efficacy exerted a strong influence on performance, while math anxiety had an effect only through its association with self-efficacy. In a study with even younger students, both stress and self-efficacy were significantly associated with performance in English, but self-efficacy appeared to be a stronger predictor (Pintrich and De Groot, 1990). These