Two Parts of the Effects of Self-Efficacy on Behavior and Learning

The effects self-efficacy has on behavior and learning can be broken down into two parts. The first part is self-efficacy for learning. Self-efficacy for learning is the idea that if a person puts their mind and energy into something they can learn it.

I developed this type of self-efficacy in my child by encouraging her to try different and new things and supporting her in her efforts. For example, when she was in high school she continued with her art classes but I also encouraged her to take American sign language as her foreign language. She did take ASL andshe decided to be active in that club at school. Some of the activities the club did was going to the school for the deaf and practicing their sign language with the students there. This developed her self -efficacy in not only learning sign language but being able to actually use it in a real setting. By putting effort into learning sign language and putting her mind into learning it she knows enough to be able to communicate on some level with deaf people and understand what they say in return.

The second part self-efficacy has on behavior and learning is self-efficacy for performance and achievement. Self-efficacy for performance and achievement is that a person already knows how to do an activity and therefore the child should be optimistic about learning how to do the activity. For example, my daughter had a natural ability to dance so when she was pre-school age I put her in dance lessons. However, just because she had the natural talent didn't make it something she was interested in. She liked dancing and had fun doing it but once it became something to learn, for her it took the fun out of it.

This is why it's important children be realistic about being able to accomplish a task and choose activities that are developmentally appropriate and that they choose them. If a parent decides a child take dance lessons because of their natural talent but it's not something the child enjoys and self -efficacy won't be developed. It will become a chore and the child may act out and behavior become challenging because the child isn't choosing the activities that will build their self-efficacy.