Abstract
Abstract Introduction: Academic self-efficacy refers to the student’s belief in their ability to organize and perform actions regarding academic activities and demands. In this context, self-efficacy has received great importance in the literature, both for the relevance and the predictive power of the events in the school setting. Students with higher levels of self-efficacy are more likely to succeed in their interventions, as they can more easily test and use their skills. Objective: To evaluate the academic self-efficacy of students in the 4th year of medical school and its correlation with the teaching method (PBL x traditional). Method: This is a cross-sectional and quantitative study carried in two medical schools: one with PBL methodology and another with traditional methodology. A total of 147 4th-year medical students participated in this study, who were divided in two groups, 73 from the school using the PBL methodology and 74 from the school with the traditional methodology. Data collection was carried out by filling out a self-answered questionnaire, containing questions on sociodemographic information and general health aspects, in addition to the Self-efficacy Scale in Higher Education. Result: Students from the school using the PBL methodology had a overall higher mean sum of the highest score (p <0.01) and higher mean score in each domain of the self-efficacy scale when compared to the school using the traditional methodology. The variables female gender, older age, living alone, not using medication for chronic disease and having an extracurricular activity had a positive influence on the mean self-efficacy score in the different scale domains. Conclusion: The 4th-year medical students of the assessed institutions showed moderate to strong self-efficacy. Students from PBL school had higher self-efficacy scores than those using the traditional methodology. These results may indicate that the active learning methodology such as the PBL curriculum may be related to a higher degree of academic self-efficacy. Further studies are required to understand the influence of the curricular model on medical students’ academic self-efficacy.
Highlights
Academic self-efficacy refers to the student’s belief in their ability to organize and perform actions regarding academic activities and demands
Analysis of the Self-efficacy Scale in Higher Education The self-efficacy of students was evaluated in each institution considering the overall mean of the obtained scores and it was observed that the students from Institution A (PBL) had a strong perceived selfefficacy when compared with the students from Institution B, whose self-efficacy was moderate (Table 1)
Self-efficacy was assessed in the five domains of the self-efficacy scale and it was observed that students from Institution A had higher values in all domains of the selfefficacy scale, with the exception of the self-efficacy domain in social interaction, which showed no difference between the groups. (Table 2)
Summary
Academic self-efficacy refers to the student’s belief in their ability to organize and perform actions regarding academic activities and demands. Self-efficacy is based on the idea of personal competence, because it is this notion that allows subjects to estimate the possibility of performing tasks and achieving the desired results, leading them to create expectations for their accomplishment, helping determining choices regarding the activities and means, as well as the necessary efforts, persistence, cognitive patterns and emotional reactions to face the challenges[1,2,3].The self-efficacy belief is developed from four sources: (1) personal performance, based on results of the own experiences that serve as capacity indicators; (2) vicarious experience, which refers to the human being’s capacity to learn from the experiences of other people, working through the transmission of skills and the comparison of the obtained results; (3) social persuasion, when the social environment promotes the perception that the person has the capacity to solve problems; and (4) physical and emotional state, from which the person infers their capacity, strength and vulnerability in the face of challenges. Students’ self-efficacy, along with other beliefs and attitudes, is related to several aspects of learning, such as: performance, outcomes, the magnitude of motivation; the value attributed to a certain learning task; the control of perceived learning, involvement with the course; cooperation with colleagues; critical thinking and knowledge[11,12,13,14]
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