I have discovered from my own experience that there is a cry within students on how they can improve their academic performance. Some students are unsatisfied with their academic outcomes, which has made some of them give up on some subjects they have been performing woefully. It is an internal struggle that isn’t well attended to in most cases.
I know how it feels when you are about to write an examination of a particular subject that you aren’t so good at. It is the feeling of someone who is already defeated and discouraged about his ability to pass such a test. Some students resort to examination malpractice because of low self-efficacy in some subjects.
Bandura defines self-efficacy as personal judgments of one’s capabilities to organize and execute courses of action to attain designated goals, and he sought to assess its level, generality, and strength across activities and contexts (Bandura 1997). The amount of one’s certainty measures the strength of perceived efficacy about performing a given task. Self-efficacy tends to predict one’s academic outcomes.
I interviewed one of my students, one of the best students in a school where I formerly worked. I asked about his internal motivation and beliefs about his academic performance. His responses were encouraging, which, as a tutor, I picked a clue from; he said his parents don’t lose sleep over him anytime he sits for any examination. In a way, his beliefs and motivation have affected his parents. He is always confident that he will pass any examination, which is his belief.
However, this is not about a false belief system; he has built capabilities in any subject he will sit for. Bandura also stated that “there is evidence that self-efficacious students participate more readily, work harder, persist longer, and have fewer adverse emotional reactions when they encounter difficulties than do those who doubt their capabilities.” Moreover, self-efficacious students undertake challenging tasks more readily than do inefficacious students. And all these are evident in him.
What to do to improve your academic performance
- Do not doubt your capabilities.
- Work harder.
- Undertake difficult and challenging tasks: For example, if you are having self-doubt about word problems in mathematics, look for different questions ranging from the simplest to the most difficult. As you are doing that, you are building your capabilities and self-confidence in that area of mathematics.
- Persistence: Don’t look for a quick fix if it seems your desired outcomes are low. You have to persist longer for you to get results.
- Love the subjects you are having challenges with.
