The Relation Between Self-Efficacy and Scientific Thinking - a Comparison Between 4th and 8th Graders

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

In the context of school, performance in scientific thinking is becoming increasingly important, especially in the subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM; OECD, 2015). While the cognitive factors are widely considered when researching the development of scientific thinking (for an overview see Zimmermann, 2007), there is little research on the influence of affective-motivational constructs. Especially self-efficacy, as a context-specific judgment of one's own abilities relating to future situations (Bandura, 1997), has been shown to have a considerable influence on subjects such as mathematics or German (e.g. Lent et al., 1997; Shell, 1995). Furthermore, the relation could be stronger when students are more experienced in a specific subject.

The present study investigates the relation between self-efficacy and scientific thinking. We measured self-efficacy on a general academic and a task-specific level and we investigated two age groups differing in experience with scientific thinking tasks. Based on the literature (e.g. Bong, 2006) a stronger correlation for task-specific self-efficacy and scientific thinking is expected. It is assumed that the correlations are stronger in 8th graders, as they have more often the opportunity to work on science problems.

The sample consisted of N=140 4th graders (m= 9.16 years; SD= 4 months) and N=148 8th graders (m=13,28 years; SD= 6 months). The performance in scientific thinking was assessed with six tasks, self-efficacy was measured with either three items on a general level or with, in total, 18 items on the task-specific level.

Grades 4 and 8 showed high values for the self-efficacy scales and, as expected, the strongest correlation emerged between task-specific self-efficacy and scientific thinking, both in grade 4 (r=.194*) and grade 8 (r=.290**). In grade 8, an additional correlation between academic self-efficacy and scientific thinking of r=.253** was found. In a cluster analysis, four clusters for grade 4, and five clusters for grade 8 were revealed. In grade 4, the students in the most frequent cluster (N=51) performed poorly and overestimated their performance. The most frequent cluster in grade 8 (N=52) can best be described as having high-performance and high self-efficacy showing that the 8th graders judged their performance more realistically than the 4th graders.

In sum, students in both grades 4 and 8 are self-effective in academic setting also in the area of scientific thinking. As expected, and in both grades, the highest correlation were found between performances in scientific thinking and task-specific self-efficacy. These correlations were higher in 8th graders, which might be due to more frequent opportunities of working on science problems in school and the resulting experience of their efficacy when solving these problems. According to first analysis of the main clusters, children become more realistic with age and experience. Nevertheless, in grade 8 there are small clusters in which students either under- or overestimate their performance suggesting that not all students would benefit from promoting self-efficacy—although self-efficacy and performance are positively correlated.
Next steps will be to examine self-efficacy and scientific thinking longitudinally to study the development of intraindividual patterns.

Authors

• Kristin Nyberg, University of education freiburg
  Presenting Author

• Susanne Koerber, Freiburg University of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher Osterhaus, University of Vechta
  Non-Presenting Author