Assessing Online Learners' Academic Self-Efficacy in a Symbiotic Learning Environment

Abstract

A symbiotic relationship in a learning environment represents a mutual benefit that is earned from each other’s learning experience. Symbiotic learning, or mutualistic learning, entails self-directed social learning in which everyone involved learns from one another. It is evident that there is a strong positive correlation between self-efficacy beliefs of learners and their academic performance and achievement. Provided that human beings are social creatures, learning occurs in social environments, and self-efficacy is important in achieving academic goals, it is worthwhile to study the impacts of a well-defined virtual social setting on academic self-efficacy. This paper outlines findings from a quantitative study conducted in order to assess the effects a symbiotic learning environment has on the academic self-efficacy of degree-seeking online students in a higher education institution in the United States. A true experimental pretest-posttest research study has revealed that online learners who were immersed in a socially rich symbiotic learning environment throughout an online course demonstrated a significant increase in their academic self-efficacy and reached a higher level of self-efficacy compared to students in the control group.