The relationship between student self-efficacy and learning engagement at Chinese vocational colleges during internship

Abstract

Introduction. The global education community is currently facing a learning crisis in the instructional process, as learning outcomes frequently fail to meet expectations due to insufficient engagement in classrooms. The promotion of student engagement in learning has become a significant issue of concern within the education sphere. Self-efficacy has been identified as a predictor of learning engagement; therefore, the study seeks to establish the empirical link between self-efficacy and learning engagement in the pedagogical process. Study participants and methods. A survey research design was utilized, involving 204 interns who were randomly selected from five vocational colleges in Wenzhou City, China. The collected data were subjected to Factor Analysis and correlation analysis for analysis purposes. Self-efficacy, emotional engagement, effort quality, psychological adjustment, and colleague interaction all had Cronbach's alpha values of 0.902, 0.918, 0.892, 0.849, and 0.847, respectively. Results. Emotional Engagement, Quality of Effort, Psychological Adjustment, Colleague Interaction, and Self-Efficacy had positive correlation coefficients of 0.455, 0.426, 0.376, and 0.4, respectively. These correlations were both significant at the 1% level. The regression model's R square indicates that self-efficacy accounted for 20.7%, 18.1%, 14.1% and 16% of the variance in each component of learning engagement: emotional involvement, quality of effort, psychological adjustment and colleague interaction respectively. Findings revealed a strong impact of selfefficacy on several facets of interns' learning engagement. Practical significance. Self-efficacy plays a crucial role in shaping students' learning engagement, both within traditional on-campus courses and during their internships. Enhancing the selfefficacy of vocational college interns is imperative to improve their learning experiences, both inside and outside the classroom.