Drew Hickman and Justin McGee
University of Dallas
Biographical Information
• Born December 4, 1925
in Alberta Canada
• B.A. from University of
British Columbia in 1949
• M.A. (1951) and Ph.D.
(1952) from the
University of Iowa
Biographical Information
• Joined the faculty of
the Department of
Psychology at
Stanford University in
1953, where he
remains today.
• In 1974, he was
elected President of
the American
Psychological
Association.
What is Self-Efficacy?
• “Self-efficacy is the belief
in one’s capabilities to
organize and execute the
sources of action
required to manage
prospective situations.”
– Albert Bandura (1986)
Self-Efficacy Defined
• Self-Efficacy is the degree to which people
believe in their abilities to perform certain
actions or tasks, not necessarily
correlating to one’s actual abilities.
Importance of Perceived Self-Efficacy
• In 1982, J.L. Collins put children into 2
groups according to their math skills and
asked them about their opinions on their
abilities.
• He gave them all some difficult math
problems, and as expected the children
with better math skills outperformed those
with poorer math skills.
Importance of Perceived Self-Efficacy
• However, self-efficacy also had an effect.
• In each of the 2 groups, the children who
believed they were good at math solved
more problems, chose to work on more of
the problems they failed, and displayed a
more positive attitude towards math.
Self-Efficacy Appraisals
• One’s judgments of his general abilities are
called self-efficacy appraisals.
• These appraisals have powerful effects on our
levels of motivation.
• Bandura suggests that there are four sources of
self-efficacy appraisals
–
–
–
–
Actual Performance
Vicarious Experiences
Verbal Persuasion
Physiological Cues
Sources of Self-Efficacy Appraisals
• Actual Performance
– Repeatedly succeeding at
tasks increases our sense of
self-efficacy while repeatedly
failing decreases our sense
of self-efficacy.
• Vicarious Experiences
– If we watch others succeed
at a task, we believe that we
can succeed at it too.
Sources of Self-Efficacy Appraisals
• Verbal Persuasion
– When another person tells us that
we can perform a task, we tend to
perform better.
• Physiological Cues
– When we become fatigued or
tension rises, we feel that the task
is becoming too difficult for us.
Our Questions
• How does actual performance effect the
self-efficacies of middle school football
players?
• How will a player’s opinion of his inherent
ability, performance in an individual game,
and satisfaction with playing time change
after a win and a loss?
Our Participants
• We studied a group of 8th grade (13-14 years
old) football players from Trinity Christian
Academy in Addison, TX. (N = 15)
Procedure
• The participants were given three surveys, the
first of which was given at practice and asked
the players to rate their abilities on a scale of 1
to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the
highest.
• The second two surveys asked players to rate
their abilities, their individual performance during
a game, and their satisfaction with playing time.
One was given after a win and the other was
given after a loss.
Hypothesis
• Players’ self-efficacies will increase after a
win, in that they will rate their abilities
higher, rate their individual performances
higher and will be more satisfied with their
playing time.
• Players’ self-efficacies will be effected
inversely after a loss.
• Leon and Self-Efficacy
Raw Data
Name
Maceo W
Tanner S
Daniel G
Cole B
Billy G
Daniel D
Brian K
Taylor B
Cody W
Hunter H
Chris D
Nick P
Sam M
Eric D
Adam W
Info
Birthdate
11/13/1994
1/13/1995
5/21/1994
11/17/1994
4/17/1995
3/1/1994
12/15/1994
4/14/1994
1/14/1995
3/10/1995
1/4/1995
1/10/1995
4/7/1995
10/12/1994
5/17/1994
Age
14
13
14
14
13
14
13
14
13
13
13
13
13
14
14
Win
4
5
3
4
4
4
3
4
5
4
3
4
3
3
3
Mean:
Abilities
Practice
4
5
3
4
4
4
3
4
5
4
2
4
3
3
3
Loss
1
3
3
4
3
4
3
4
5
3
4
2
3
3
3.733333 3.666667 3.214286
Ind Perf
Win
5
3
N/A
4
3
4
4
5
4
5
3
4
4
5
3
4
4
3
3
N/A
Play Time
Win
5
1
1
3
3
4
4
5
2
3
3
3
3
3
2
2.909091
3
Loss
1
3
N/A
4
2
1
N/A
3
4
4
Loss
2
5
1
1
4
1
1
4
1
4
5
3
1
1
2.428571
Results
4
3.5
3
2.5
Practice
Win
Loss
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Abilities
Indiv Perf Play Time
Conclusions
• Our hypothesis proved true in
that players self-efficacies
increased after a win, in that
they rated their abilities
higher, rated their individual
performances higher, and
they were more satisfied with
their playing time and that the
inverse occurred after a loss.
However…
Problems
• However we are not able to generalize our
findings because of a small sample size.
• Also, our study focused on actual
performance and neglected to study
vicarious experience, verbal persuasion
and physiological cues. We cannot be
sure what impact, if any, this had on the
players’ self-efficacies.
• Loss conundrum.