Enhancing academic self-efficacy and performance among fourth year psychology students: Findings from a short educational intervention

Abstract

Academic self-efficacy refers to a student{'}s belief about their capability of learning or performing new academic tasks, generally within a specific educational domain (e.g., writing, analysis, synthesis). There is strong evidence that self-efficacy can influence student learning, achievement motivation and academic outcomes. Despite this, comparatively little empirical research has been published on interventions designed to enhance academic self-efficacy, particularly with undergraduate students enrolled in courses which entail a major research component. To address the gap, we describe an action learning project that implemented and evaluated an intervention aimed to improve the self-efficacy of academic skills needed to complete a research thesis in psychology.