Adaptive and effortful control and academic self-efficacy beliefs on achievement: A longitudinal study of 1st through 3rd graders
Section snippets
Theoretical rationale
Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) has shaped the conceptualization and empirical knowledge of how self-beliefs relate to personal agency and how efficacy influences academic motivation, learning, and achievement (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Gerbino, & Pastorelli, 2003; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, & Davis-Kean, 2006). According to social cognitive theory, self-efficacy refers to whether a person perceives herself or himself as capable of mobilizing and maintaining effort
Participants
Participants were 733 first grade children (53% male) participating in a longitudinal study examining the impact of grade retention on academic achievement from three school districts (one urban, two small cities) in Central and Southeast Texas. Participants were relatively low achieving in literacy for their individual school districts, scoring below the median on a state approved district-administered measure of literacy taken in either May of kindergarten or September of first grade. In
Plan of analyses
Descriptive and preliminary analyses were first conducted, and differences in children's age, gender, IQ, ethnicity and economic adversity on the major variables of this study were examined. Correlational analyses were then conducted to examine within and across-time relations between measures of adaptive/effortful control (i.e., inhibitory control and ego-resiliency), academic self-efficacy beliefs, and reading and math achievement. Using SEM, the potential direct and indirect influences of
Discussion
This is the first study, to our knowledge, to empirically examine the contributions of temperamental effortful control and self-efficacy beliefs simultaneously on academic achievement. Our findings demonstrate that adaptive/effortful control at 1st grade contributed to positive academic self-efficacy beliefs at 2nd grade, and contributed to literacy (but not math) 2 years later. Although academic self-efficacy did not partially mediate the linkage between adaptive/effortful control and
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