Self-efficacy in English : a comparison of first year and fourth year students' language self-efficacy in the Philippines and the factors affecting self-efficacy

Abstract

Self-efficacy beliefs are “beliefs in one‟s capability to organize and perform courses of action needed to handle prospective situations” (Bandura, 1997). Academically, students with a high sense of efficacy for accomplishing a task will get involved more readily, work harder, and persist longer than those who doubt their capabilities (Zimmerman, 1995). As self-efficacy is known to influence student achievement, the study aimed to investigate the English self-efficacy of Filipino students as it may shed light on how they manage their academic challenges in the midst of low performance in achievement tests. The present study aimed to determine and find significant differences in the language self-efficacy of first year and fourth year Filipino teacher-students and investigate what factors significantly influence their self-efficacy in English. Specifically, the study aimed to know whether background factors such as: level of schooling, gender, family income, parents‟ education and employment status, high school attended, language spoken at home; and other factors such as: optimism, perceived academic performance, preferred media language, and the use of media forms (books, magazines, radio, newspapers, televisions, mp3/mp4‟s, podcasts, videos, cd‟s, internet), significantly influence English self-efficacy of the teacher-students. Conducted in the College of Teacher of Education at Cebu Normal University in Philippines, and using survey-correlational design with a sample of 227 students, the results revealed that the language self-efficacy of fourth year students was higher than first years‟. Language self-efficacy was found to have significant relationships with level of schooling, gender, father‟s educational attainment, high school attended, perceived academic performance, and optimism. The use of books, magazines, and newspapers, radios and mp3/mp4‟s also influenced the language self-efficacy. Corresponding implications and recommendations for teachers, parents, schools and policy makers were discussed.