Abstract
Understanding the development of mathematics self-efficacy has important implications. Based on Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy, most previous studies mainly examined whether the sources predicted or correlated with mathematics self-efficacy, which might have oversimplified the underlying mechanism of self-efficacy development. This study conducted an in-depth investigation into the sources of mathematics self-efficacy of Chinese junior high school students. A mixed-method approach was adopted, which incorporated semi-structured interview with the “Q-sorting” procedure. Twelve Chinese students (6 boys and 6 girls, mean age 13.2 years) were purposely selected based on gender and their mathematics self-efficacy levels. Findings showed that students with either high or low self-efficacy not only experienced different degrees of exposure to the sources of self-efficacy but also held diverse viewpoints about the effects of each source on their mathematics self-efficacy. Girls recalled receiving more social persuasion and experiencing more anxiety than boys in mathematics learning. Yet, girls’ perceptions of the influence of each source were not significantly different from boys’. In contrast to previous studies conducted in western contexts, this study demonstrates Chinese students’ different viewpoints about the influence of effort, competition and face issue on their mathematics self-efficacy. Findings of this study shed light on the complex mechanism underlying the development of self-efficacy in mathematics learning.
Highlights
As a crucial construct of Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1997), self-efficacy refers to Bbeliefs in one’s capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainment^ (Bandura, 1997, p. 3)
Corresponding to the two research questions, the discussion section firstly demonstrates how students of different genders and mathematics self-efficacy levels differed in their past experiences of the sources of mathematics self-efficacy
The interview data show that all participants with high self-efficacy reported abundant mastery experiences whereas their counterparts with low self-efficacy recalled constant setbacks in learning mathematics
Summary
As a crucial construct of Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1997), self-efficacy refers to Bbeliefs in one’s capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainment^ (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). In addition to aforementioned survey research, Zeldin and her colleagues interviewed both male and female professionals in science, mathematics and technology, reporting that social persuasions and vicarious experiences, those from significant others, play a considerably vital role in the development of self-efficacy of females in maledominated arenas (Zeldin et al, 2008; Zeldin & Pajares, 2000) Given these inconsistent findings, it is worthwhile to further explore gender difference in terms of the degree of exposure to sources of self-efficacy and the influential power of each source, respectively. In a similar vein, Klassen (2004) found that South Asian immigrant students were significantly more susceptible to social comparative information than their Anglo Canadian non-immigrant counterparts This is echoed by the finding in a quasi-experimental study of Chan and Lam (2008) who found that highlighting the comparative function of modelling significantly undermined Chinese students’ self-efficacy. By synthesising the findings of both qualitative and quantitative analysis, we could gain a more comprehensive understanding of how Chinese students perceive the sources of mathematic self-efficacy
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