Relationship Between Self-efficacy and Attention using QEEG with Students from IUE

Abstract

Self-efficacy is related to the judgments and beliefs that a person has about him or her own capability to achieve goals, in which she or he also needs to be able of planning, organizing, and executing tasks to achieve that milestone. In this study, we are investigating if attention has a relevant role in self-efficacy. The participants were students at Institución Universitaria de Envigado (N = 25), aged between 18 and 40 years old. They filled out the informed consent, the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSS), Digits and Symbols (DS), the Brief Attention Test (BTA), and the Theta-Beta ratio (TBR) using EEG at points C3-C4 of the cerebral cortex. The results were as follows: mean GSS, 31.56 (SD=4.5) (max. 40 points); mean DS direct score, 45.16 (SD=8.6) (max. 120 points); mean total BTA, 9.4 (SD = 3.31) (max. 20 points); mean TBR C3 eyes open, 5.5 (SD = 1.7); TBR C4 eyes open, 5.2 (SD = 2). A negative correlation was found between the TBR C4 eyes open and the result of the Digits and Symbols DS test, which was statistically significant, using Spearman correlation, (-.529); however, there was no significant correlation between GSS self-efficacy and the three measures of attention (DS, BTA, QEEG) The conclusion of this study is that there is no clear statistically significant relationship between high self-efficacy and a high level of attention. However, a significant negative correlation was found between the DS test and the QEEG measures, which indicates that the neurophysiological technique of attentional measurement is related to the psychometric measurement.