using past performance, proxy efficacy, and academic self-efficacy to predict college performance

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Using Past Performance, Proxy Efficacy, and Academic Self-Efficacy to Predict College Performance Steven M. Elias 1 and Scott MacDonald Auburn University Montgomery This study examined the ability of prior academic performance, proxy efficacy, and academic self-efficacy to predict college academic performance. Participants (N = 202) completed a modified version of the Teacher Collective Efficacy scale (Goddard, 2001), the Academic Self-Efficacy scale (Elias & Loomis, 2000), and a demographic questionnaire. Prior performance was predictive of both academic self-efficacy beliefs and college performance. Hierarchical regression analysis indi- cates that academic self-efficacy beliefs explain a significant amount of unique vari- ance beyond past performance in predicting college performance. Proxy efficacy did serve as a predictor of student academic self-efficacy, but did not serve as a predictor of college performance. Implications for instructors, as well as for future research, are discussed. The most important capability an individual can possess is that of self- regulation (Baumeister, Leith, Muraven, & Bratslavsky, 1998; Zimmerman, 2000). Self-regulation refers to the ways in which an individual controls and directs his or her own actions (Markus & Wurf, 1987). It is believed that self-regulation becomes more and more possible as an individual develops, such that an individual’s ability to plan his or her future (e.g., educational goals, career decisions) does not occur until approximately 14 to 16 years of age (Demetriou, 2000). However, chronological development is far from the only influence on one’s ability to engage in self-regulation. According to Bandura (1982), self-regulation is greatly influenced by an individual’s confidence in one’s ability to make use of one’s tools of personal agency. This confidence, which is so central to self-regulation, is referred to as perceived self-efficacy. One of the reasons why self-efficacy is so essential is that it operates during each phase of Zimmerman’s (2000) three-phase self- regulation model: forethought (setting the stage for action), performance (processes that affect attention and action), and self-reflection (responding to efforts; Schunk & Ertmer, 2000). Of importance is the idea that self-efficacy beliefs are highly related to the self, such that self-efficacy is an essential component of the self system 1 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Steven M. Elias, Auburn University Montgomery, Department of Psychology, P. O. Box 244023, Montgomery, AL 36124. E-mail: [email protected] 2518 Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2007, 37, 11, pp. 2518–2531. © 2007 Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

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Using Past Performance, Proxy Efficacy, and AcademicSelf-Efficacy to Predict College Performance

Steven M. Elias1 and Scott MacDonaldAuburn University Montgomery

This study examined the ability of prior academic performance, proxy efficacy,and academic self-efficacy to predict college academic performance. Participants(N = 202) completed a modified version of the Teacher Collective Efficacy scale(Goddard, 2001), the Academic Self-Efficacy scale (Elias & Loomis, 2000), and ademographic questionnaire. Prior performance was predictive of both academicself-efficacy beliefs and college performance. Hierarchical regression analysis indi-cates that academic self-efficacy beliefs explain a significant amount of unique vari-ance beyond past performance in predicting college performance. Proxy efficacy didserve as a predictor of student academic self-efficacy, but did not serve as a predictorof college performance. Implications for instructors, as well as for future research,are discussed.

The most important capability an individual can possess is that of self-regulation (Baumeister, Leith, Muraven, & Bratslavsky, 1998; Zimmerman,2000). Self-regulation refers to the ways in which an individual controls anddirects his or her own actions (Markus & Wurf, 1987). It is believed thatself-regulation becomes more and more possible as an individual develops,such that an individual’s ability to plan his or her future (e.g., educationalgoals, career decisions) does not occur until approximately 14 to 16 years ofage (Demetriou, 2000). However, chronological development is far from theonly influence on one’s ability to engage in self-regulation.

According to Bandura (1982), self-regulation is greatly influenced by anindividual’s confidence in one’s ability to make use of one’s tools of personalagency. This confidence, which is so central to self-regulation, is referred to asperceived self-efficacy. One of the reasons why self-efficacy is so essential isthat it operates during each phase of Zimmerman’s (2000) three-phase self-regulation model: forethought (setting the stage for action), performance(processes that affect attention and action), and self-reflection (responding toefforts; Schunk & Ertmer, 2000).

Of importance is the idea that self-efficacy beliefs are highly related tothe self, such that self-efficacy is an essential component of the self system

1Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Steven M. Elias, AuburnUniversity Montgomery, Department of Psychology, P. O. Box 244023, Montgomery, AL36124. E-mail: [email protected]

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2007, 37, 11, pp. 2518–2531.© 2007 Copyright the AuthorsJournal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

(Bandura, 1986). However, rarely do individuals work entirely by themselves.In fact, many of the problems and issues with which we contend today arecommon problems that require a collective effort (Bandura, 1997). As aresult, simply having confidence in one’s abilities may not be enough to getthe job done. What may be of equal importance is the confidence one has inanother individual’s or group’s ability to be successful. Such confidence in theperformance capability of others to act on one’s behalf is referred to as proxyefficacy (Bandura, 1997).

Characteristics of Self-Efficacy Beliefs

Self-efficacy beliefs are pertinent to the ways in which we think, feel,become motivated, persist, and perform (Bandura, 1997). The sources ofthese beliefs are mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persua-sion, and physiological/affective states. The most influential of these sourcesare mastery (i.e., successful) experiences because they provide an individualwith real-life evidence that he or she has what it takes to succeed (Bandura,1997). For example, students’ prior performance offers a reliable guide forassessing self-efficacy beliefs (Schunk & Ertmer, 2000). When a student’sprior performance has been successful, that student’s efficacy beliefs areraised, but when such efforts have been unsuccessful, efficacy is lowered(Zimmerman & Ringle, 1981).

However, it is important to note that Bandura (1997) reported that self-efficacy beliefs contribute to an individual’s performance independent of pastperformance. Therefore, efficacy beliefs should explain a significant amountof variance in performance beyond the effect of past performance. Onepurpose of the current study is to empirically assess this assumption throughthe use of hierarchical regression analysis.

Of utmost importance is the idea that self-efficacy beliefs are domainspecific. Because self-efficacy should not be considered an omnibus trait,theorizing about the efficacious individual or group would be inappropriate.As Bandura (1997) pointed out, “In navigating the mathematical realm,people act on their beliefs of mathematical efficacy, not on their efficacybeliefs for writing sonnets or baking soufflés” (p. 40). The domain of interestfor the current research is that of college-level academic self-efficacy.

Academic Self-Efficacy

Specifically of interest are college students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs.Academic self-efficacy refers to a learner’s judgment about his or her ability to

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successfully attain educational goals (Bandura, 1977). Academic self-efficacyis of importance because it has been linked to such issues as academic grades(Elias & Loomis, 2000; Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1986), academic majorselection (Betz & Hackett, 1983), academic major persistence (Lent, Brown,& Larkin, 1984), and academic motivation (Bandura, 1977). Academicself-efficacy has also been found to be a significant predictor of academicperformance (Elias & Loomis, 2004). In fact, efficacy beliefs are thought tobe so important to academics that Bandura (1997) stated, “Perceived self-efficacy is a better predictor of intellectual performance than skills alone” (p.216). In addition, academic self-efficacy has also been linked to importantnonacademic variables, such as depression and prosocial behavior (Bandura,Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996).

Proxy Efficacy

One construct that has not received the research attention it deserves isthat of proxy efficacy. As mentioned previously and according to Bray andcolleagues (Bray, Gyurcsik, Culos-Reed, Dawson, & Martin, 2001), proxyefficacy can be defined as “one’s confidence in the skills and abilities of athird party or parties to function effectively on one’s behalf” (p. 426). Forthe current study, proxy efficacy can be thought of as a student’s confi-dence in his or her college faculty’s ability to function well on his or herbehalf.

Bandura’s (1986, 1997) theoretical writing on proxy efficacy has beenfollowed by only a few empirical studies of the construct (e.g., Bray et al.,2001; Bray & Cowan, 2004). Consequently, the body of empirical studiespertaining to proxy efficacy is not extensive and is fairly limited to fields otherthan academic performance. However, the theoretical and empirical writingsthat do exist offer enough background to allow for the development oftheory-based hypotheses in the area of academics.

Frequently, individuals find themselves in situations in which they do nothave absolute control over all of the contingencies that must be addressed inorder to be successful (Bandura, 1997). For example, after experiencing amyocardial infarction (heart attack), many individuals wish to completeexercise-based cardiac rehabilitation programs, but do not possess therequisite knowledge to do so without assistance. Even though the individualis adequately motivated, he or she still requires the assistance of an exerciseconsultant in order to complete such a program. When individuals areenrolled in cardiac rehabilitation programs and they have confidence in theirexercise consultant (i.e., high proxy efficacy), their own self-efficacy for com-pleting the program will be high. Contrarily, when such individuals do not

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have confidence in their exercise consultants (i.e., low proxy efficacy), theirown self-efficacy for completing the program will be low (Bray & Cowan,2004).

Research indicates the existence of a positive correlation between renaldialysis patients’ adherence to their healthcare providers’ recommendationsand the amount of confidence the patients have in their healthcare providers’abilities (Christensen, Wiebe, Benotsch, & Lawton, 1996). Bray et al. (2001)reported that for certain instructor-led activities (e.g., aerobic courses), proxyefficacy was positively correlated with students’ personal efficacy beliefs.Based on these results, Bray et al. concluded that there is a “supplementaryrole of proxy efficacy in the development of personal efficacy beliefs” (p. 432).Applying these findings to academics allows one to hypothesize that whena university student has confidence in his or her faculty (i.e., high proxyefficacy), his or her academic self-efficacy should be enhanced. The currentresearch seeks to address this contention.

Past Performance, Self-Regulation, and Efficacy Beliefs

Bandura (1992) noted that when individuals are faced with complexunfamiliar environments, they rely heavily on past performance in order tojudge their efficacy. This causal ordering of self-regulatory determinantshas been developed through the use of path analysis. For example, Woodand Bandura (1989) reported that when completing new tasks, one’s per-formance is greatly impacted by past performance (b = .57). However, as atask becomes more familiar, performance is impacted less by past perfor-mance (b = .37) and more by self-efficacy (b = .55; b = .79, prior to control-ling for analytic strategies). As a task becomes more familiar, individualswill form self-schemas as to their efficacy that will power their perfor-mance system more so than other non-self-related perceptions (Bandura,1992).

Because university students typically will have had 12 years of academicexperience prior to the start of their college careers, it is believed that therewill be a high level of task familiarity with college-level academic require-ments. Based on this, it is held that while prior academic performance isimportant to academic success, given the issue of task familiarity, academicself-efficacy beliefs are more important to such success.

Several studies have demonstrated the importance of past performance/mastery experiences, proxy efficacy, and academic self-efficacy. The currentresearch examines these constructs in terms of how they relate to collegestudents’ academic performance.

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Hypotheses

According to Zimmerman and Ringle (1981), when a student’s priorperformance has been successful, his or her subsequent efficacy beliefs areraised. On the contrary, if the student has performed poorly in the past,efficacy beliefs will suffer in the future. Therefore, the following ishypothesized:

Hypothesis 1. Prior performance (i.e., high school grade pointaverage [GPA]) will serve as a predictor of current academicself-efficacy beliefs.

Wood and Bandura (1989) indicated that when an individual performsfamiliar tasks, past performance as well as self-efficacy beliefs impact currentperformance. As a result, the following is hypothesized:

Hypothesis 2. Prior performance (i.e., high school GPA) willaccount for a significant amount of variance in collegeperformance.

Research has indicated that self-efficacy beliefs contribute to an individu-al’s future performance, independent of his or her past performance(Bandura, 1997); and that as a task becomes more familiar, self-efficacybeliefs are more important to success than is prior performance (Wood &Bandura, 1989). Therefore, hierarchical regression analysis will be used totest the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3. Academic self-efficacy beliefs will not only ex-plain a significant amount of variance in college performancebeyond that of past performance, but will also account for agreater amount of variance in performance than does pastperformance.

A small number of studies have shown that when an individual is relianton another to accomplish goals, proxy efficacy impacts his or her personalself-efficacy beliefs (e.g., Bray & Cowan, 2004; Bray et al., 2001; Christensenet al., 1996). Based on this relationship, the following is proposed:

Hypothesis 4. Students’ perceptions of proxy efficacy willaccount for a significant amount of variance in their academicself-efficacy beliefs.

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Method

Participants

Participants were 202 students (87 men, 115 women) who were enrolled inintroductory psychology courses at a large university in the Rocky Mountainregion of the United States. All data were collected during the springsemester.

Participants’ mean age was 19.24 years (SD = 1.39), and most of theparticipants were Caucasian (95%). Students reported being freshmen(67.3%), sophomores (22.8%), juniors (7.4%), or seniors (2.5%). Participantshad a mean high school GPA of 3.36 (SD = 0.42) and at the time of datacollection, had a mean college GPA of 2.89 (SD = 0.66). While participantswere not asked to report their specific major, most participants had notchanged their major (68%) at the time of data collection.

Given the fact that there were no missing data, no participants wereomitted from the study. All participants received course-required researchcredit for taking part in the study and were treated in accordance with theethical guidelines set forth by the American Psychological Association.

Materials

Proxy efficacy. Goddard’s (2001) Collective Efficacy Scale (CES), whichtypically assesses an entire faculty’s confidence in its ability to accomplishgoals, was used to assess student perceptions of proxy efficacy. Collectiveefficacy refers to a group’s confidence in its ability to successfully address aproblem through concerted effort (Bandura, 1986). Since collective efficacy isa social-organizational construct, rather than an individual construct, forresearch purposes a group of individuals would complete a measure of col-lective efficacy, and their aggregated response would be used as the index ofefficacy. For example, Goddard administered the CES to teachers at severalschools, and the mean CES value obtained from each school served as thatschool’s index of collective efficacy. For the current study, the collectivecomponent has been removed in that individual students provided theirpersonal beliefs as to whether their faculty has the ability to function ontheir behalf, resulting in a measure of proxy efficacy, rather than collectiveefficacy.

The CES (Goddard, 2001) is comprised of 21 Likert-type items that aremeasured on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (stronglyagree; see Appendix for sample CES items). Principal-axis factor analysis ofthe 21 CES items resulted in a single factor being extracted (a = .96), which

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explains 50.5% of the variance in the scale items. Individual-item factorloadings ranged from .47 to .86, with 17 of the 21 items loading at .71or above (Goddard, 2001). The current data yielded a reliability statistic(Cronbach’s a) of .85 for the CES (see Table 1). Because the CES wasoriginally used with fourth-grade students, three words in the scale weremodified. Specifically, “teachers” was changed to “faculty members,”“school” was changed to “university,” and “child” was changed to “student.”Therefore, the original item “Teachers in this school really believe every childcan learn” became “Faculty members in this university really believe everystudent can learn.”

Academic self-efficacy. Students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs wereassessed via the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES; Elias & Loomis, 2000;see Appendix for sample ASES items). The ASES is a paper-and-pencilquestionnaire comprised of 35 items that are rated on a 10-point scaleranging from 1 (no confidence at all) to 10 (complete confidence). Specifically,the ASES is comprised of three factors: general course efficacy (GCE), physi-cal education course efficacy (PECE), and milestone efficacy (ME). Severalstudies have been conducted that have made use of the ASES with universitystudents (e.g., Elias & Loomis, 2000, 2004).

Principal components analysis completed for each of these studies showsthat the ASES factor structure is reliable. For the three studies, the GCEfactor (18 items; as = .93–.94) accounted for 38.6% to 41.8% of the variancein course items, whereas the PECE factor (5 items; as = .82–.86) accountedfor 12.5% to 15.5% of the variance in course items. The ME factor (12 items;as = .91–.94) accounted for 53.0% to 55.5% of the variance in milestone

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics: Independent and Dependent Variables

Variable M SD

Range

aLow High

Milestone efficacy 9.06 0.94 5.33 10.00 .90Physical education course efficacy 8.62 1.33 3.60 10.00 .78General course efficacy 7.97 0.30 4.59 10.00 .92Proxy efficacy 4.07 0.55 2.67 5.76 .85High school GPA 3.36 0.42 1.71 4.00 —College GPA 2.89 0.66 0.85 4.00 —

Note. GPA = grade point average.

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items. Coefficients of reliability for the current study were .92 for GCE items,.78 for PECE items, and .90 for ME items (see Table 1).

One issue of importance revolves around domain specificity and the use ofthe GCE factor. Some self-efficacy researchers (e.g., Zimmerman, 2000) havetheorized that students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs will vary based on thetopic of interest. For example, a student may have a high sense of self-efficacyfor science, but a low sense of self-efficacy for liberal arts. Although thismakes sense from a theoretical standpoint, this theoretical contention has notbeen supported statistically. In fact, confirmatory factor analysis of the 35ASES items (Elias & Loomis, 2000) indicates that the ASES is comprised ofthree factors: GCE, PECE, and ME (goodness-of-fit index = .93, Tucker–Lewis Index = .92, root mean square error of approximation = .13; Kane& Elias, 2004). This three-factor model was superior to other models thatexamined specific types of course self-efficacy (e.g., science self-efficacy,social science self-efficacy, and literature self-efficacy).

Noteworthy is the fact that ASES (Elias & Loomis, 2000) items aredistributed fairly equally across academic topics: Five items are dedicated toscience, five are dedicated to physical education, five are dedicated to socialscience, three are dedicated to literature, three are dedicated to ethnic studies,one is dedicated to mathematics, and one is dedicated to fine art. Thisdistribution of items is significant because it greatly reduces the possibilitythat the structure of the ASES was responsible for topic-specific factors notbeing detected.

Demographics. Demographic information was obtained through the useof a questionnaire that assesses participants’ age, gender, ethnicity, classstanding, high school GPA, and college GPA. Cumulative GPA has beenused as a measure of academic performance in prior academic self-efficacyresearch (Elias & Loomis, 2004; Lent et al., 1984). The use of self-reportedGPA was deemed appropriate, based on the results of previous researchaddressing self-reported Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, as well asself-reported GPAs. Examining the reliability of undergraduate students’self-reported SAT scores, Goldman, Flake, and Matheson (1990) obtainedcorrelation coefficients ranging from .74 to .85 between actual and self-reported scores. Specifically addressing the issue of inflated self-reportedGPAs, Dobbins, Farh, and Werbel (1993) reported that 75.7% of under-graduates provided accurate GPAs when asked to do so on a survey.

Procedure

Participants completed the ASES (Elias & Loomis, 2000), the CES(Goddard, 2001), and the demographic questionnaire in the same time

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sequence, in group settings, during prearranged appointment times. Upontheir arrival, participants were provided with a cover letter that brieflydescribed the purpose of the study and informed them of their rights asparticipants. Upon completing the questionnaires, participants were pro-vided with a debriefing form that discussed the research in more detailand provided them with information about contacts, should they have anyquestions.

Results

No participants provided incomplete responses, resulting in there beingno missing data. Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, ranges,and reliability statistics (when appropriate) for each of the variables underinvestigation. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical analyses.

Given that mastery experiences are the most important source of efficacy(Bandura, 1997), it was correctly hypothesized (Hypothesis 1) that past per-formance (high school GPA) would be predictive of academic self-efficacybeliefs. These results were obtained when examining the data for ME(R2 = .10), F(1, 201) = 21.90, p < .001; PECE (R2 = .22), F(1, 201) = 10.54,p = .001; and GCE (R2 = .08), F(1, 201) = 18.22, p < .001.

Support was obtained for Hypothesis 2, which indicated that past perfor-mance (high school GPA) would serve as a significant predictor of collegeperformance (B = .60, b = .38, R2 = .15, p < .001). Furthermore, ME, GCE,and PECE each accounted for a significant amount of variance in collegeperformance (see Table 2). However, Bandura (1997) reported that efficacybeliefs contribute to an individual’s performance, independent of past per-formance, and Wood and Bandura (1989) reported that as a task becomesmore familiar, past performance is less important to performance than areefficacy beliefs. One way to test these statements, as well as Hypothesis 3, is

Table 2

Regression Analysis Predicting College Performance Based on Efficacy Beliefs

Variable B SE B b t p R2

Milestone efficacy .35 .04 .50 8.20 <.001 .25Physical education course efficacy .28 .03 .56 9.45 <.001 .31General course efficacy .13 .03 .27 3.95 <.001 .07

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to determine whether academic self-efficacy beliefs not only accounted fora significant amount of variance in college GPA, beyond the varianceaccounted for by past performance, but also whether efficacy beliefsaccounted for a greater amount of variance in college GPA than did priorperformance. Hierarchical regression analysis was completed, which sup-ports these contentions and Hypothesis 3.

ME (B = .30, b = .42, DR2 = .16, p < .001), GCE (B = .25, b = .49,DR2 = .22, p < .001), and PECE (B = .10, b = .19, DR2 = .04, p < .01) eachaccounted for a significant amount of unique variance in college GPAbeyond the variance accounted for by past performance (R2 = .15). Further-more, ME (DR2 = .16) and GCE (DR2 = .22) each accounted for a greateramount of variance in GPA than did past performance. This finding lendssupport to the belief that as tasks become more familiar, efficacy beliefs aremore important to success than is prior performance.

Given that proxy efficacy has been linked to self-efficacy beliefs (e.g., Brayet al., 2001), it was proposed that proxy efficacy would account for variancein academic self-efficacy beliefs. Hypothesis 4 was primarily supported in thatproxy efficacy accounted for variance in ME (R2 = .02), F(1, 201) = 4.66,p < .05; and GCE (R2 = .02), F(1, 201) = 4.47, p < .05; but not PECE(R2 = .005), F(1, 201) = 1.02, p = .31. One caveat to these findings is thatalthough proxy efficacy was predictive of ME and GCE, the varianceaccounted for was small. Proxy efficacy did not serve as a significant predic-tor of college performance (B = .04, b = .03, R2 = .00, p > .05).

Discussion

Prior academic performance has been linked to an individual’s academicself-efficacy beliefs (Zimmerman & Ringle, 1981). This finding is in line withBandura’s (1997) general contention that mastery experiences are the bestway to enhance perceived self-efficacy. The current research supports thiscontention, as well as prior research (e.g., Zimmerman & Ringle) in that highschool performance was found to be a significant predictor of college stu-dents’ academic self-efficacy beliefs. When students performed well in highschool, their efficacy beliefs for their college abilities were enhanced. On thecontrary, when students’ prior academic performance was poor, college aca-demic self-efficacy beliefs suffered. This lends credence to Elias and Loomis’(2000) suggestion that “by having instructors increase the amount of oppor-tunities students have to be successful, they will be aiding in the developmentand strengthening of those students’ academic self-efficacy” (p. 453).

Given the importance of mastery experiences/past performance, it wascorrectly hypothesized that high school GPA would serve as a predictor of

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college GPA. Although the importance of past performance/mastery experi-ences has been demonstrated, the importance of academic self-efficacy beliefsshould not be overlooked. In fact, hierarchical regression analysis indicatesthat academic self-efficacy beliefs accounted for a significant amount ofunique variance beyond past performance in predicting college academicperformance. In particular, ME, GCE, and PECE accounted for 16%, 22%,and 4%, respectively, of the unique variance in college performance. Thesefindings support prior research linking academic self-efficacy beliefs to aca-demic performance (Bandura, 1977; Betz & Hackett, 1983; Elias & Loomis,2000, 2004; Lent et al., 1984, 1986). In addition, the results of this regressionanalysis support Wood and Bandura’s (1989) contention that as a taskbecomes more familiar, efficacy beliefs take on more importance than priorexperience.

While the relationship has not been examined in academic settings,research in other areas has demonstrated that proxy efficacy is of importanceto self-efficacy beliefs (e.g., Bray & Cowan, 2004; Bray et al., 2001;Christensen et al., 1996). The current research indicates that proxy efficacy isof importance to academic settings in that proxy efficacy is predictive ofcollege students’ ME and GCE. One caveat to this finding is that the amountof variance accounted for by proxy efficacy is fairly small. A potential reasonfor this revolves around the development of the ability to engage in self-regulated learning. Because college students are able to engage in self-regulated learning, they are likely to take responsibility for their academicabilities, and will be less likely to look to others to enhance their efficacy.Therefore, although proxy efficacy is of some importance to college students’academic self-efficacy beliefs (any student’s efficacy would suffer if he or sheperceived his or her faculty as being inefficacious), it is not a major determi-nant of such beliefs. Regardless, given the lack of research in this area, futureresearch should be completed in order to gain a better understanding of theproxy efficacy/academic self-efficacy link.

In summary, these findings suggest that past academic performanceand academic self-efficacy are highly important to future academic perfor-mance. However, while proxy efficacy seems to impact a student’s academicself-efficacy beliefs, it does not seem to impact his or her academic perfor-mance. This finding has been explained in terms of college students (unlikeelementary school students) possessing the ability to engage in self-regulated learning, which allows them to be successful, even if they do notbelieve that their faculty members have what it takes to act effectively ontheir behalf. It seems important for future studies to be conducted toexamine this contention with either longitudinal or cross-sectional research.It also seems appropriate to stress the importance of having instructorsprovide students with opportunities to be successful. Such mastery experi-

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ences will not only enhance efficacy beliefs, but will also enhance futureperformance.

Although this research offers insight into the importance of prior success,academic self-efficacy, and proxy efficacy, it is not without limitations. Oneissue that future research should address is the lack of an assessment toolthat has been designed specifically to measure proxy efficacy. Although themeasure used in the present study yielded high reliability statistics, it was inneed of modification as a result of it being developed originally to assesscollective efficacy. A second limitation of the present study is that the samplewas comprised of mostly Caucasian students. Follow-up research should becompleted in order to determine whether this study’s results could be gener-alized to a more diverse student body.

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Appendix

Sample Survey Items

Proxy Efficacy

1. Faculty members here are confident they will be able to motivatetheir students.

2. Faculty members in this university are able to get through to diffi-cult students.

3. Faculty members here are well-prepared to teach the subjects theyare assigned to teach.

4. Faculty members at this university are skilled in various methods ofteaching.

Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ME = milestone efficacy; PECE = physicaleducation course efficacy; GCE = general course efficacy)

1. Complete 45 semester hours of upper-division courses (ME)2. Complete the requirements for your academic major with a grade

point average of at least 3.0 (ME)3. Successfully pass all classes enrolled in over the next three semesters

(ME)4. Complete a course in swimming with a grade of “B” (PECE)5. Complete a course in aerobic exercise with a grade of “B” (PECE)6. Complete a course in tennis with a grade of “B” (PECE)7. Complete a course in economics with a grade of “B” (GCE)8. Complete a course in biology with a grade of “B” (GCE)9. Complete a course in political science with a grade of “B” (GCE)

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