Young children’s self-efficacy: there is more to know

 

Self-efficacy is an important element in understanding human action and well-being. Self-efficacy is a belief in a person’s ability to perform a particular activity to produce an outcome.  It is one of the important determinants of acquiring health behaviours because it determines how a person executes the behaviour. Self-efficacy directly impacts the adoption and maintenance of health behaviour to promote health and prevent diseases. At an early age, fostering self-efficacy is essential as it aids young children to recognize their abilities, overcome challenges, adopt essential attitudes and behaviours, and have more motivation to reach their goals which will help them grow into healthy adults.

Psychologist Albert Bandura presented four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal and social persuasion and emotional and physiological states. By experiencing success, failures, and obstacles, children will become resilient and strong to overcome challenges and persevere to perform a task and succeed. Through modelling, a child observes and masters a comparable task to succeed. Persuasion and feedback also encourage them to master a given task and put greater effort to succeed. Good physical stamina and emotional state are also ways in completing a task successfully. We have knowledge on how to enhance self-efficacy in general, but little is known about the effects of self-efficacy of young children.

To understand children’s self-efficacy, determining the four key indicators should be established. These indicators are beliefs in the ability to perform a task, motivation to complete the given task, performing a task with regards to physical and emotional states, and ability to decide to perform a task under any given circumstances. Studies have shown that children with high self-efficacy believe they handle and overcome challenges they come across, finish the task despite physical and psychological challenges, and are confident to perform the task regardless of any situation.

Some studies suggest that young children who have higher self-efficacy reported to like performing healthy behaviours which resulted in being healthy and physically active and less sedentary behaviour and absences. However, there is still little evidence to support this justification. Evaluating the self-efficacy of young children is complex, challenging, and demands time because of their vulnerability and limited verbal communication. Involving young children requires special consideration and longer preparation. Also, the cultural scope of studies on the theory of mind in the children population is limited and studies suggest some inconsistencies in cognitive development across the world’s different cultures. Thus, more research is encouraged in the future to bridge these gaps.

The author:
Glenda Dangis
RN, MHSc, MSN, PhD candidate
University of Turku, Department of Nursing Science
glenda.h.dangis(at)utu.fi

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