Promoting the will and skill of students at academic risk: an evaluation of an instructional design geared to foster achievement, self-efficacy and motivation

Journal of Instructional Psychology, March, 2003 by Miriam Alfassi

Measures of Self-efficacy

Data on self-efficacy in the realms of language arts and math were collected. Possible scores ranged from 1 to 5 with high scores reflecting high self-efficacy and low scores reflecting low self-efficacy. To test the significance of group differences in self-efficacy a 2 X 2 (Group X Grade) MANOVA was conducted. The results revealed significant differences between the two study groups F(2,47) = 37.99, p <.001. The means, standard deviations and univariate ANOVA of both variables are presented in Table 2.

As can be seen in Table 2 the experimental group differed significantly from the control group and obtained higher mean scores on both measures of self-efficacy.

The MANOVA did not reveal significant differences between grades, F(2,47) = .19, p > .05, or a significant interaction of Group X Grade F(2,47) = .06, p > .05.

To test the relationship between self-efficacy and achievement scores, Pearson correlations were calculated. Significant positive correlations were found between achievement scores in language arts and measures of self-efficacy in language arts and math, r= .42,p < .05; r= .59,p < .01. The achievement scores in math also correlated positively and significantly with self-efficacy measures in language arts and math, r = .56, p < .01; r = .62, p < .01.

Multivariate ANCOVA analyses were carried out with corresponding self-efficacy measures (in the domains of language arts and math) as covariates to determine whether self-efficacy accounts for the variance found between groups on achievement scores. The MANCOVA analyses revealed significant differences between groups but with smaller F scores than those found in analyses which did not use the self-efficacy measures as covariates (see Table 1). Results of the MANCOVA performed on eighth grade students yielded significant effects for method of instruction in language arts, F(1,26) = 32.48, p < .001 and in math F(1,26) = 25.68, p < .001. And for ninth grade students the MANCOVA yielded significant effects for method of instruction in language arts, F(1, 18) = 5.24, p <.001 and in math F(1, 18) = 18.53, p < .001.

Effect sizes were calculated to portray the contribution of self-efficacy to the differences found between groups on achievement scores. Results of the analyses performed on 8th grade students indicated that self-efficacy accounts for 13% of the variance between groups in language arts, and 21% of the variance between groups in math. And for 9th grade students the analyses indicated that self-efficacy accounts for 24% of the variance between groups in language arts, and 27% of the variance between groups in math.

Internal Versus External Motivational Measures

Data on two measures of the Internal versus External Motivational Scale were collected. Possible scores ranged from 1 to 4 with high scores reflecting an intrinsic motivation and low scores reflecting an extrinsic motivation. A 2 X 2 (Group X Grade) MANOVA was conducted in order to examine whether motivational orientation varied across groups and grades. The results revealed significant differences between the two study groups F(2,47) = 6.69, p <.001 on the motivational orientation measure only. Means, standard deviations and the univariate F values obtained from the MANOVA for the two groups are presented in Table 3.