Association Between Proactive Personalityand Academic Self–Efficacy

Shin-Huei Lin & Wan Chen Lu & Mei-Yen Chen &

Lung Hung Chen

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Research about organizations has consistently revealed that proactive personality isa relatively stable disposition and a significant antecedent of self-efficacy, which generatesemployees’ proactive behavior and thus benefits individuals and firms. Consequently, thepresent study aimed to examine whether the relationship between proactive personality, ageneral temperamental tendency, and specific self-efficacy that is focused on certain activitiesor tasks might emerge across contexts in an education setting with a directional effect. From asample of 123 students, we employed a longitudinal approach using two waves of surveys toexamine the directional relations between students’ proactive personalities and their academicself–efficacy in education. The results showed that students’ proactive personalities at Time 1predicted change in their academic self–efficacy at Time 2, suggesting a top–down relation-ship. On the contrary students’ academic self–efficacy at Time 1 could not predict theirproactive personalities at Time 2. In short, the directional effect of proactive personality on

Curr PsycholDOI 10.1007/s12144-014-9231-8

S.<H. Lin (*)Department of Human Development & Family Studies, National Taiwan Normal University,162, Helping East Road Section 1, Taipei, Taiwane-mail: adammada7868@gmail.com

W. C. Lu (*)Department of Tourism and Leisure Management, Taoyuan Innovation Institute of Technology,No. 414, Sec. 3, Chung Shang E. Rd., Chung Li City, Taoyuan County 32091, Taiwane-mail: bluekey13@hotmail.com

M.<Y. Chen (*)Graduate Institute of Sport, Leisure, and Hospitality Management, National Taiwan Normal University,162 Helping East Road Section 1, Taipei, Taiwane-mail: annencpes@gmail.com

M.-Y. Chene-mail: meiyen686@gmail.com

L. H. Chen (*)Department of Recreation and Leisure Industry Management, National Taiwan Sport University,No. 250, Wen Hua 1st Road, Kueishan, Taoyuan County, Taiwane-mail: fjudragon@gmail.com

self–efficacy across contexts was captured in this study. Implications and limitations werediscussed.

Keywords Proactive personality . Academic self-efficacy . Education

Self–efficacy, one of imperative elements of self–beliefs, is a determinant of academicachievement (Huang 2012). According to social cognitive theory (Bandura 1986), self–efficacy refers to individuals’ belief or judgment in terms of their capability to succeed at orto carry out particular activities or tasks. In the educational setting, self–efficacy equippedstudents for strong thinking and confidence when they are in conditions in which they needto display their initiative (Bandura 1986). In classrooms, self–efficacy functions as themediator, delivering and converting self–beliefs on subsequent performance attainments(Gafoor andAshraf 2012). Academic self–efficacy is fundamental to academic achievementand persistence (Huang 2013) as well as success (Lent et al. 1984, 1986, 1987). Researchhas suggested that self–efficacy brings positive influences on students’ goal–setting, effort,and persistence (Pajares 2009). In addition, a meta–analytic study demonstrated thatstudents’ academic self–efficacy is related to the attainment of basic cognitive skills,coursework, and standardized achievement tests (Multon et al. 1991), and it is positivelyrelated to academic motivation, including persistence, memory performance, and academicperformance (Dorman 2001). Given the core nature of schooling and the aim of helpingstudents to accomplish goals, to develop confidence and competence, and to acquire skills, itseems practically significant for researchers to identify whether individuals with specificchronic dispositions are associated with self–efficacy. Consequently, in the present study,with a theoretical base, we would like to examine one possible temperament antecedent:proactive personality.

Being proactive is a critical competitive advantage in modern society, especially in theworkplace (Parker andCollins 2010), where rapid change is common, thus emphasizing andhighlighting the need to be proactive. During the past two decades, attention to proactivepersonality has primarily grown out of interest in a particular domain, organizationalbehavior. Rather than responding to anticipated and concrete demands–such as passivelyaccommodating a changed situation or preparing for the next predicament–being proactiveis a prominent attribute for properly handling unpredictable circumstances, allowing aperson to quickly and actively respond to his or her surroundings and thus prevent potentialproblems (Frese and Fay 2001; Parker and Collins 2010). Proactive personality is defined asan inclination to take self–initiated action and to transform the current situation into afavorable one (Bateman and Crant 1993). Crant and Bateman (2000) described proactivepersonality as “conceptually and empirically, some unique element of personality notaccounted for by the five–factor model” (p. 66).

A proactive personality has three vital features: being self–initiated, change oriented, andfuture focused (Griffin et al. 2010; Parker et al. 2010). People with proactive personalitieshave long–term perspectives, are willing go further in the allotment of tasks in order toaccomplish established goals (Parker et al. 2006), persevere until significant change occursin the attainment of aspirations (Crant 2000; Parker et al. 2010), and demonstrate the abilityto prevent problems and to engage in strategic scanning–that is, looking for all possibilities,even unusual ones (Parker and Collins 2010). In fulfilling their ambitions, they also seek

Curr Psychol

new information, new practices, and new ways of improving the status quo (Bateman andCrant 1993). According to the above definitions, a proactive personality would be expectedto trigger proactive motivation processes, such as self–efficacy, and eventually lead to betteroutcomes (Parker et al. 2010).

Parker et al. (2010) have proposed a model of a proactive motivation process andantecedents, which demonstrate that proactive personality has a directional effect on self–efficacy. Moreover, research has also indicated a similar mechanism of the relationshipbetween proactive personality and self–efficacy, which has been elaborated on and issophisticated (Bindl and Parker 2011; Wu and Parker 2011). Crant (2000) indicated thatproactive personality is a stable dispositional trait across a range of activities and situations ingeneral. Accordingly, this trait could be captured in diverse fields and be context–unrelated.However, the existence of a cross–contextual character is scarce in empirical support.

Being proactive requires undertaking potential mental risks, althoughBateman andCrant(1993) argued that they are relatively unconstrained by situational restriction. Proactiveindividuals generate arduous goals and persist until they have been achieved (Crant 1996).Hence, students with proactive personalities would tend to set high goals and to harness allavailable resources–such as seeking out new information, new practices, and new methodsin order to improve their situations or to achieve goals–activities that could be met withresistance and skepticism from others. Therefore, proactive students need to be confidentthat they can initiate proactive goals and can deal with subsequent problems before they takeaction in an effort to influence the status quo. Individuals with high self–efficacy–a beliefthat one can be successful in a specific sphere–are superior in proactive goal formation.Self–efficacy raises an individual’s feeling of control and his or her perceived likelihood ofsuccess (Morrison and Phelps 1999), thereby making self–efficacy important to a proactivepersonality. Barling and Beattie (1983) suggested that task–related self–efficacy couldenhance individuals’ exertion and persistence, thus increasing their chances of completingchallenging tasks. Such self–efficacy would increase one’s willingness to overcome obsta-cles, lead to more challenging goals (Locke and Latham 1990), and result in a renewedpersistence (Lent et al. 1987), all of which are imperative for bringing environmentalchange. When students possess analogous competence, this might explain why some ofthem who hold positive beliefs about their academic capabilities perform remarkably in theacademic setting (Gafoor and Ashraf 2012).

Few studies have focused on job searches, investigating whether a proactive personalityinfluences pre–employment outcomes. The results have provided empirical support thatproactive personality could be captured in college students. In a longitudinal research,Brown et al. (2006) tested a model of proactive personality and job–search behavior incollege graduates; albeit, the study was conducted at two time points, and proactivepersonality and self–efficacy data were collected in the same wave. Claes and De Witte’s(2002) cross–sectional study with college students found a positive relationship betweenproactive personality and the number of job search behaviors. These studies provide aninitial outline that shows the positive relationship between proactive personality and self–efficacy. However, although the directional effect of proactive personality on motivationalconstructs (Kanfer 1992), such as self–efficacy, has been illustrated, it has not been validatedwhether college students with the endurable dispositional tendency of being proactive canbe measured over time to ascertain this stable attribute and to prove self–efficacy as adirectional effect. Therefore, in the present study, we proposed that the affirmed directionalrelationship between proactive personality and specific self–efficacy could be cross–

Curr Psychol

contextually captured in education. More specifically, in the education setting, students’proactive personalities would have a directional effect on their academic self–efficacy in atop–down manner. The hypotheses are as following:

Hypothesis 1: The later academic self–efficacy of students could be predicted by theirearly proactive personalities after controlling their early academic self–efficacy.Hypothesis 2: The later proactive personality of students could not be predicted by theirearly academic self–efficacy after controlling their early proactive personalities.

In the current study, we attempt to examine, from a theoretical perspective, the predictivepotential of proactive personality on academic self–efficacy. Specifically, our aim is tovalidate with empirical evidence that the confirmed directional effect also exists across theorganization realm and is present in an educational setting. In order to acquire more robustresults than cross–sectional results, we conducted a cross–lagged approach in this study.Weexamined the directional effect between the construct over time in an educational setting;auto–correlations and the association between proactive personality and academic self–efficacy at the same time point were taken into account through hierarchical regression witha longitudinal approach at two time points in a three–month interval.

Method

Participants

A sample of undergraduate business students was drawn from a medium–sized institutein Taiwan in a three–month time interval during the institute semester. In the sample ofthe present study, participants who took the course of leisure management were invitedto participate in the survey. Except for the demographic data, the students wereinvestigated for their proactive personalities and academic self–efficacy at both timepoints. Participants’ respondents were assured of confidentiality. In addition, accordingto the regulations of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan, the current studybelongs to the category of physiological data collected through noninvasive procedures,for which the acquisition of approval by the Institutional Review Board wasunnecessary.

During the first wave of the survey (Time 1, hereafter T1), questionnaires weredistributed to 195 students, and 164 (84 % response rate) returned completed ques-tionnaires. For the second wave of the survey (Time 2, hereafter T2), the sameprocedure was followed: All students at T1 were invited to participate again, and 151(77 %) questionnaires were returned. Checking student identification (ID) numbersresulted in a matched sample of 123 students who had completed both questionnaires,T1 (75 %) and T2 (81 %). Of the participants, the average age was 22 (SD–3.82), and72 % (N–89) were male.

Procedures

We adopted a two–wave longitudinal survey for examining the cross–lagged relationsbetween proactive personality and academic self–efficacy. The surveys were

Curr Psychol

administered twice, in September (T1) and in December (T2). The researchers admin-istered the surveys in classrooms on the course. Participants’ student ID numbers wereused to match the second–wave responses.

Measures

The measures were carefully translated from their original sources into Chinese, theparticipants’ native language. The back–translation was also implemented to ensure themeaning remained the same. In addition, to confirm the instrument’s validity andreliability, a pilot study had been conducted prior to the formal survey. Controlvariables included two pieces of demographic data–gender and age–and students’grades on the midterm examination.

Proactive personality The original 17–item Proactive Personality Scale (PPS) wasproposed by Bateman and Crant (1993). As time passed, several abbreviated versionsof the PPS (with 10, six, five, and four items) were developed and used (Claes et al.2005). The employed items (six, five, and four) comprised those with the highestloadings (Bateman and Crant 1993). Students would grow weary of a long–winded,repetitive questionnaire, which would injure the quality of the data; hence, we selectedthe concise four–item PPS–used by Parker and Collins (2010), Parker et al. (2006), andParker and Sprigg (1999)–with applicable internal consistency. The scale ranged from 1(Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree), and the Cronbach’s alphas were .78 (T1) and.85 (T2), respectively. A sample item is, “If I believe in an idea, no obstacle will preventme from making it happen.” A higher score indicates a more highly proactivepersonality.

Academic self–efficacy. Academic self–efficacy was measured with the five–itemacademic–related issues scale of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales(PALS; Midgley et al. 2000). The academic efficacy scale ranged from 1(Not True at All) to 7 (Definitely True), with students indicating the extentto which they perceived their capability to do their classwork. Sample itemsare, “I’m certain I can master the skills taught in class this year” and, “I can doeven the hardest work in this class if I try.” Cronbach’s alphas were .81 and.85 for T1 and T2, respectively.

Results

Descriptive Analyses

Table 1 presents means, standard deviations, and correlations for the study vari-ables. As predicted, all of the intercorrelations among proactive personality andacademic self–efficacy at T1 and T2 were positively related (ps<.001). Withregard to the control variables–age, gender, and the grades on the midtermexamination–some were positively associated with proactive personality and aca-demic self–efficacy (ps<.05).

Curr Psychol

Hierarchical Regression Analyses

To examine the hypotheses and to test the stabilities and cross–lagged relationshipsbetween proactive personality and academic self–efficacy, we assessed two models foreach of the outcome variables via hierarchical regression: (a) proactive personality atT2 as a dependent variable in Step 1, which included proactive personality at T1 anddemographic data, adding academic self–efficacy at T1 in Step 2; and (b) academicself–efficacy at T2 as a dependent variable in Step 1, which included academic self–efficacy at T1 and demographic data, adding proactive personality at T1 in Step 2. Asshown in Tables 2 and 3, the results indicated that the overall model was significant inboth proactive personality at T2 (F5, 117–14.37, p<.001) and academic self–efficacy atT2 (F5, 117–13.10, p<.001). In addition, students’ proactive personalities at T1 predicted

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among study variables

Variable M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1.Age 21.82 3.82 - - - - - -

2.Gender a - - -.10 - - - - -

3.Midterm exam 85.80 10.82 .04 .21* - - - -

4.Proactive personality (T1) 4.79 0.91 .20* -.02 .08

5.Proactive personality (T2) 4.59 1.15 .27** .00 .11 .59***

6. Academic self-efficasy (T1) 4.78 0.89 .13 .01 .05 .53*** .39***

7.Academic self-efficasy (T2) 4.74 1.16 .16 .12 .21* .48*** .70*** .51***

Notes: M = mean, SD = standard deviationa Mean and standard deviation not defined for nominal data

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Table 2 Results of hierarchical regression analysis of cross-lagged relations between proactive personalityand academic self-efficacy: academic self-efficasy at Time 2

Predictors Proactive personality at Time 2

β ΔR2

Step 1 (control variables) 0.37***

Age .16*

Gender .02

Midterm examination .06

Proactive personality at Time 1 .55***

Step 2 0.01

Academic self-efficasy at Time 1 .10

Overall R .62

Overall R2 .38

Adjusted R2 .35

Overall F (5, 117) 14.37

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Curr Psychol

their academic self–efficacy at T2 (β=.27, p<.01); that is, the higher the proactive person-ality levels that students possessed at T1, the higher their academic self-efficacy at T2.Finally, academic self-efficacy at T1 and proactive personality at T2 did not reveal such arelationship (students' academic self-efficacy at T1 did not predict their personalities at T2,β=.10, ns.). Therefore, both hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 were supported, which revealedthat the relationship between proactive personality and academic self-efficacy wasdirectional.

Consequently, four salient points emerged from the results. First, individual differences inproactive personality were stable from T1 to T2 (proactive personality at T1 predictedproactive personality at T2, β=.55, p<.001). In addition, academic self-efficacy alsodisplayed such stability (academic self-efficacy at T1 predicted academic self-efficacy atT2, β=.48, p<.001). Third, students’ proactive personalities at T1 predicted their academicself-efficacy at T2 (β=.27, p<.01); that is, the higher the proactive personality levels thatstudents possessed at T1, the higher their academic self-efficacy at T2. Finally, academicself-efficacy at T1 and proactive personality at T2 did not reveal such a relationship(students’ academic self-efficacy at T1 did not predict their personalities at T2, β=.10, ns.).

Discussion

In order to advance our understanding of the relationship between proactive personalityand academic self-efficacy over time in education, we draw on conceptualizations ofproactive personality in the industrial/organization literature based on a theoreticalfoundation. Our study provided two important incremental conclusions upon theory:First, accompanied by empirical support, we extended the boundary of the theory thatthe relationship between proactive personality and academic self-efficacy exists

Table 3 Results of hierarchical regression analysis of cross-lagged relations between proactive personalityand academic self-efficacy: academic self-efficacy at Time 2

Predictors Academic self-efficacy at Time 2

β ΔR2

Step 1 (control variables) 0.31***

Age .10 -

Gender .08 -

Midterm examination .17* -

Academic self- efficacy at Time 1 .48*** -

Step 2 - 0.05**

Proactive personality at Time 1 .27** -

Overall R .60 -

Overall R2 .36 -

Adjusted R2 .33 -

Overall F (5, 117) 13.10*** -

* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

Curr Psychol

originally in a specific field, that is, industry/organization. Our findings validate our ideathat the relationship exists over time in an educational setting. Second, this distinctrelationship features a directional effect in a directional manner. Following the explana-tion of the results, we discuss the theoretical contributions in detail.

This research’s most important finding revealed a significantly stronger associationbetween proactive personality at T1 and academic self-efficacy at Time 2 than thereverse. This pattern implies that early proactive personality predicts later academicself-efficacy. The results support the view that the trait of proactive personality plays apositive role in motivational processes (Fuller and Marler 2009). As Gist and Mitchell(1992) stated, personality factors may affect self-efficacy by arousing a person’sexperiences when confronted with a task. It is expected that academic self-efficacycould be stronger across a greater variety of tasks for students with highly proactivepersonalities when compared with those who have lower levels of proactivepersonality.

As a first key contribution, our findings confirmed that the relationship betweenproactive personality and self-efficacy exists cross-contextually. A salient featureappeared on the specificity of the domain: Self-efficacy is characterized as a task-specific belief (Mitchell and Daniels 2003), and it is portrayed as a belief that peoplehold concerning their capability to perform a particular task or activity in general(Bandura 1986). Coinciding with this thinking, self-efficacy could be recognized as adomain-specific orientation; yet, proactive personality has been shown to be a stablepersonality trait across a range of activities and situations at a general level (Crant2000). The distinctive association between a task-unrelated disposition (i.e., proactivepersonality) and a task-related belief (i.e., self-efficacy) has been confirmed in the realmof industry/organization; further, the current study also verified the association instudents. Although Frese and Fay (2001) argued that general temperamental tendenciesacross situations would spill over into specific spheres—thereby coloring a person’sself-efficacy judgment—the actual mechanism is still vague and needs future study.

Specifically, in this study, the path from early proactive personality to lateracademic self-efficacy was significantly stronger than the reverse, which suggestsa directional effect. Unlike a stable trait, self-efficacy is a dynamic construct thatchanges over time (Wood and Bandura 1989), and it is expected to change inresponse to the context, whereas proactive personality is a relatively stabledisposition to make changes (Parker 1998). Consistent with the rationale, ourresults indicate a directional effect performed in a top-down manner. In otherwords, early proactive personality predicts later academic self-efficacy to agreater degree than does the reverse, implying that proactive personality couldimpact a low level of academic self-efficacy.

This study has two limitations: First, the sample size in this study is not large.Although the sample size was relatively small, it indeed confirmed the cross-contextual and directional relationship. Future research could enlarge the samplesize in order to overcome this limitation. Second, the interval between T1 and T2in this study was three months. Not yet constructed is a consensus about an aptinterval between time points to guide a longitudinal study that is focused on thetopic of disposition in education. Therefore, studies in education have adopted diverseintervals, such as six months (Marsh et al. 1999) and one year (Marsh 1990). Furtherlongitudinal research is needed to investigate the stability and the consistency of an

Curr Psychol

association within different time intervals to better capture the directional nature of therelationship between proactive personality and academic self-efficacy.

Finally, compared with the considerable research in industry/organization, littleattention has been devoted to the issue of proactive personality, motivation process,and behavior in education. The present study takes the first step to validate the top-down directional effect between proactive personality and acedemic self-efficacy ineducation. To further contribute to the theory and application, there is a need toinvestigate the associations between the proactive motivation process and learningbehaviors—academic achievement, creativity, and maladaptive behavior—that couldenrich the growing body of educational research.

Acknowdedgments This study was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan for Wan Chen Lu(NSC 102-2410-H-253-002) and Mei-Yen Chen (NSC 102-2410-H-003-133-MY2). In addition, Lung HungChen was supported by Ministry of Education, Taiwan (2012 project of elastic salary for outstanding scholar)

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social-Cognitive View. Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall.

Barling, J., & Beattie, R. (1983). Self-efficacy beliefs and sales performance. Journal of OrganizationalBehavior Management, 5, 41–51.

Bateman, T. S., & Crant, J. M. (1993). The proactive component of organizational behavior: A measure andcorrelates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2), 103–118. doi:10.1002/job.4030140202.

Bindl, U. K., & Parker, S. K. (2011). Proactive work behavior: Forward-thinking and change-oriented actionin organizations (In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 2,pp. 567-598)). DC American Psychological Association: Washington.

Brown, D. J., Cober, R. T., Kane, K., Levy, P. E., & Shalhoop, J. (2006). Proactive personality and thesuccessful job search: A field investigation with college graduates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(3),717–726. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.3.717.

Claes, R., & De Witte, H. (2002). Determinants of graduates' preparatory job search behaviour: A competitivetest of proactive personality and expectancy-value theory. Psychologica Belgica, 42(4), 251–266.

Claes, R., Beheydt, C., & Lemmens, B. (2005). Unidimensionality of abbreviated proactive personality scalesacross cultures. Applied Psychology-an International Review-Psychologie Appliquee-RevueInternationale, 54(4), 476–489.

Crant, J. M. (1996). The proactive personality scale as a predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal ofSmall Business Management, 34(3), 42–49.

Crant, J. M. (2000). Proactive behavior in organizations. Journal of Management, 26(3), 435–462. doi:10.1177/014920630002600304.

Crant, J. M., & Bateman, T. S. (2000). Charismatic leadership viewed from above: The impact of proactivepersonality. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 63–75.

Dorman, J. (2001). Associations between classroom environment and academic efficacy. LearningEnvironments Research, 4(3), 243–257. doi:10.1023/a:1014490922622.

Frese, M., & Fay, D. (2001). Personal initiative: An active performance concept for work in the 21st century.Research in Organizational Behavior, 23, 133–187.

Fuller, B., & Marler, L. E. (2009). Change driven by nature: A meta-analytic review of the proactivepersonality literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75, 329–345.

Gafoor, K. A., & Ashraf, P. M. (2012). Contextual influences on sources of academic self-efficacy: Avalidation with secondary school students of Kerala. Asia Pacific Education Review, 13(4), 607–616.doi:10.1007/s12564-012-9223-z.

Gist, M. E., & Mitchell, T. R. (1992). Self-efficacy: A theoretical analysis of its determinants and malleability.Academy of Management Review, 17, 183–211.

Griffin, M. A., Parker, S. K., & Mason, C. M. (2010). Leader vision and the development of adaptive andproactive performance: A longitudinal study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 174–182.

Curr Psychol

Huang, C. J. (2012). Discriminant and incremental validity of self-concept and academic self-efficacy: Ameta-analysis. Educational Psychology, 32(6), 777–805. doi:10.1080/01443410.2012.732386.

Huang, C. J. (2013). Gender differences in academic self-efficacy: A meta-analysis. European Journal ofPsychology of Education, 28(1), 1–35. doi:10.1007/s10212-011-0097-y.

Kanfer, R. (1992). Work motivation: New directions in theory and research. In C. L. Cooper & I. T. Robertson(Eds.), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 1–53). Chichester,England: Wiley.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Larkin, K. C. (1984). Relation of self-efficacy expectations to academicachievement and persistence. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 31, 356–362. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.31.3.356.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Larkin, K. C. (1986). Self-efficacy in the prediction of academic performanceand perceived career options. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33, 265–269. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.33.3.265.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Larkin, K. C. (1987). Comparison of three theoretically derived variables inpredicting career and academic behavior: Self-efficacy, interest congruence, and consequent thinking.Journal of Counseling Psychology, 34, 293–298. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.34.3.293.

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall.

Marsh, H. W. (1990). Causal ordering of academic self-concept and academic achievement: A multiwave,longitudinal panel analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 646–656.

Marsh, H. W., Byrne, B. M., & Yeung, A. S. (1999). Causal ordering of academic self-concept andachievement: Reanalysis of a pioneering study and revised recommendations. EducationalPsychologist, 34(3), 155–167.

Midgley, C., Maehr, M. L., Hruda, L., Anderman, E. M., Anderman, L., Freeman, K. E., Gheen, M., Kaplan,A., Kumar, R., Middleton, M. J., Nelson, J., Roeser, R., & Urdan, T. (2000). Manual for the Patterns ofAdaptive Learning Scales (PALS). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.

Mitchell, T. R., & Daniels, D. (2003). Motivation. In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, R. J. Klimoski, & I. B.Weiner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 225–254). New York: Wiley.

Morrison, E. W., & Phelps, C. C. (1999). Taking charge at work: Extrarole efforts to initiate workplace change.Academy of Management Journal, 42, 403–419.

Multon, K. D., Brown, S. D., & Lent, R. W. (1991). Relation of self-efficacy beliefs to academic outcomes: Ameta-analytic investigation. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 18, 30–38.

Pajares, F. (2009). Toward a positive psychology of academic motivation: The role of self-efficacy beliefs. InR. Gilman, E. S. Huebner, & M. J. Furlong (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology in schools (pp. 149–160). New York: Taylor & Francis.

Parker, S. K. (1998). Enhancing role breadth self-efficacy: The roles of job enrichment and other organiza-tional interventions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(6), 835–852.

Parker, S. K., & Collins, C. G. (2010). Taking stock: Integrating and differentiating multiple proactivebehaviors. Journal of Management, 36(3), 633–662. doi:10.1177/0149206308321554.

Parker, S. K., & Sprigg, C. A. (1999). Minimizing strain and maximizing learning: The role of job demands,job control, and proactive personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(6), 925–939.

Parker, S. K., Bindl, U. K., & Strauss, K. (2010). Making things happen: A model of proactive motivation.Journal of Management, 36(4), 827–856.

Parker, S. K., Williams, H. M., & Turner, N. (2006). Modeling the antecedents of proactive behavior at work.Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(3), 636–652. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.3.636.

Wood, R., & Bandura, A. (1989). Social cognitive theory and organizational management. Academy ofManagement Review, 14, 361–384.

Wu, C. H., & Parker, S. K. (2011). Proactivity in the work place: Looking back and looking forward. In K. C.G. Spreitzer (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Curr Psychol