When class charts are posted to list accomplishments, students can not help but compare themselves to others, just like Peter did. His self-efficacy is affected his classroom performance and reading potential.
Children’s self-awareness and confidence in abilities can affect their reading and writing performance. Knowing the difference between self-efficacy and self-concept, and helping students to change their outlook will help teachers organize the classroom and plan instruction to facilitate confidence and motivate students to be engaged in literacy activities.
Self-efficacy is a student’s judgment of his ability and likelihood of success regarding a given task (Jang, Conradi, McKenna & Jones, 2015). Self-concept is an “Individual’s overall self-perception” (Jang et al., 2015, p. 240). Both play an imperative role in motivation and overall reading success.
Some children have low confidence in themselves as reader or writers. There can be many reasons why children may be unsure of themselves. Family history, past school experiences, or unrealistic expectations may all contribute. Students will poor self-efficacy are unsure of their abilities. They have low confidence and don’t feel they are capable. Very similar to Peter’s view of his abilities, some children lack confidence. On what basis does a student judge his ability toward reading and writing? “The sources children use to develop self-concept include their perceived reading success, comparing themselves to others while reading, and literacy feedback from teachers and peers” (Marinak, Malloy, Gambrell, & Mazzoni, 2105, pp. 58-59). This judgment of abilities, often times inaccurate, directly affects motivation in the classroom.
Students who have a negative association towards reading and writing have poor self-concepts. They don’t see themselves as a readers. They don’t see the value or life-long importance of becoming a good reader. There is a pessimistic attitude and negative association towards reading and writing. Why does a child harbor these feelings? A variety of reasons could exist, but a few include material that has not appealed to personal interests, ideas have not been validated, few choices when selecting books, or not being taught the value of reading and writing.
Why is it important that students are motivated to read? Students who are motivated actively participate. They pay attention, respond to questions, are engaged and stay on task (Malloy, Marinak, Gambrell, & Mazzoni, 2015). When students are engaged they will participate. There is a strong correlation between motivation and reading achievement. Teachers need to help students develop favorable feelings towards self-achievement and reading. Graesser and D’Mello (2012) wrote about four main topics that can affect students’ emotions towards reading. First, boredom affects student motivation when they are given no personal choices. The topic may not be relevant to them or they have no background knowledge to make a personal connection. Next, students exhibit frustration. The material is too difficult or they have not been given adequate support from the teacher. Confusion affects comprehension because they don’t understand the text. Finally, engagement is a critical component to motivation because we want students to absorb new information and be active participants in the learning process. “Each of these four scenarios depends on the characteristic of the learning environment” (Graesser & D’Mello, 2012, p. 239). How a classroom is structured, time management, and selection of material all affect student motivation related to reading.
Teachers can benefit from some concrete examples to improve self-efficacy. Perceived self-efficacy comes from four main sources: personal achievements, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological responses. Personal achievements are the most influential sources of perceived self-efficacy because they are based on individual experience.
There is a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt that states, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Peter immediately began to compare himself to his peers and made the association that he must not be smart.
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