Abstract

RODRIGUES, Luciana Cantarino  and  BARRERA, Sylvia Domingos. Self-efficacy and school achievement in students of elementary school. Psicol. pesq. [online]. 2007, vol.1, n.2, pp. 41-53. ISSN 1982-1247.

The self-efficacy beliefs, defined as the perceptions of the personal capacity to reveal the behaviors which are necessary to reach specific objectives, are considered an important motivational factor, acting as mediating factor between the capacities of the individual and his performance. The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between the perception of self-efficacy and school achievement in students of elementary public school. 34 children, fourth degree, both sexes, participated in this research by responding a questionnaire, which was designed to evaluate the “Perception of Self-efficacy”. Furthermore, the school achievement of the participants was checked and later used to calculate the correlation with the results from the self-efficacy questionnaire. The correlations obtained show a significant positive association between the measurements of self-efficacy and school achievement. The results obtained can be understood in according to the hypothesis of mutual influence between the two factors, reinforcing that school play a fundamental role in the construction of more optimistic self-efficacy beliefs in the students which, consequently, may have a positive impact on their school achievement.

Keywords : Self-efficacy; School achievement; Elementary school.

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