According to Bandura (2012) self-efficacy is the belief in ones capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations. The idea emphasizes the exercise of human agency; specifically, peoples’ ability to exercise influence over what they think and do. Examples of self-efficacy include a person’s belief that they can perform a particular job, sing a song, or solve a logic problem.

Scientists have investigated the effects of self-efficacy in numerous domains and many people have assumed it is a significant influence on human performance.  Self-efficacy beliefs affect our choice of activities and effort expended upon personal actions. It also influences our perseverance in the face of obstacles; how we feel and the goals that we choose.

The best methods to improve your Self-Efficacy

You have three ways to increase our self-efficacy. First are mastery experiences that result from the desire to develop a competency. Researchers tend to regard mastery experiences as the most influential source of self-efficacy. Although mastery experiences imply proficiency, futile attempts will undermine self-efficacy beliefs. Vicarious experiences encompass viewing a comparable other’s performance on given tasks. This source of self-efficacy is particularly powerful when people are unsure of their own abilities or when they have modest prior knowledge of the pertinent activity. Discussions and other forms of persuasive communication can also raise self-efficacy. These are most successful when expressed by parties who are capable and honest. Click here to receive your guide to self-efficacy development.

Self-evaluation refers to measuring goal progress by comparing one’s current level of performance to a desired goal state. Self –evaluation is important because it helps you improve your performance. Self-evaluation certainly implies that one is self-monitoring their performance. Self-monitoring could be as simple as keeping mental notes on performance but should involve keeping a written record of performances.

Goals and feedback on performance are also required for self-evaluation.  They can be internal or external factors. This means that both personal and social matters are relevant to self-evaluation. One example could be the goal of losing five pounds and feedback would pertain to self-measurements of weight. A similar scenario would concern a supervisor’s assigned goal to exceed weekly sales quota and feedback comes from a company sales reports.

Individuals assess whether they have successfully fulfilled their expectations as part of self-evaluation. This results in changes in effort, perceptions of performance, and goal commitment.  Negative feelings often present if progress is slower than expected towards goals.  Low performers react negatively to this type of self-evaluation.  They are unlikely to try to improve their performance because they attribute their errors to internal, stable factors, such as low ability. They also attribute their performance to circumstances that they cannot change. It is not surprising that a person may change their goals due to negative self-evaluation.

Did you know self-evaluation is a precursor to high performance?

People who achieve high performance continue to pursue their goals following negative self-evaluation. They tend to attribute their failure to low effort and poor use of learning strategies. If progress is not sufficient, one may increase effort or change strategies to increase the likelihood of goal attainment and improving performance. High performers focus their attention on circumstances they can change. High performers are persistent.

Self-evaluations have both indirect and direct consequences. They have important implications for how we feel about ourselves and how we respond to challenges. Self-evaluation influences whether we pursue our goals. In the end, our self-evaluations will be negative at some point in our life; you must be persistent, increase your effort and try new strategies for great performance.

Learning Strategies help us perform at higher levels. Learning strategies or strategies are efficient procedures that people use to complete a task. We need strategies because we have a limited amount of thinking resources. Strategies allow us to do more with our limited mental resources. It is convenient to distinguish between three types of strategies: generic, domain specific and higher order.

Did you know there are three types of learning strategies?

1. Goal setting is a generic strategy because one can use goal setting in a variety of domains. A domain is a specified sphere of activity or knowledge. Another generic strategy is rehearsal that is the recycling of information in short term memory. We perform rehearsal when we are trying to retain a phone number just long enough to dial the number.
2. The second type of strategy is domain specific. Using a cooking recipe for beef stew is a domain specific strategy because a cooking recipe has little use outside a kitchen. Applying a depreciation formula to a rental property is also a domain specific strategy because it has limited value outside of accounting practices. Likewise, computer-programming procedures have little use outside computer languages.
3. Metacognitive strategies are the third type of strategy. People engage in these strategies to adapt to and manage strategies while thinking. Metacognition refers to thinking about one’s thinking. It concerns two types of knowledge: facts and steps to perform a task, in other words procedural knowledge. Metacognition helps us monitor and control our strategies. One example of metacognition occurs when a person uses multiple comprehension strategies while reading because they know they will comprehend more efficiently.

 Do you want to become a good learning strategy user?

Good strategy users have a broad repertoire of strategies. They use such strategies in an automatic manner with little conscious effort. Moreover, they perform all types of strategies in this manner. Being an automated strategy user is best because it allows you to allocate your limited thinking resources to constructing meaning and overseeing your learning processes. Which type of strategy user are you? For more information on strategies, download your free primer on learning strategies.