Self-Efficacy The Power of Believing You Can

Abstract

Some of the most powerful truths also are the simplest—so simple that a child can understand them. The concept of self-efficacy deals with one of these truths—one so simple it can be captured in a children’s book of 37 pages (with illustrations), yet so powerful that fully describing its mplications has filled thousands of pages in scientific journals and books over the past two decades. This truth is that believing that you can accomplish what you want to accomplish is one of the most important ingredients— perhaps the most important ingredient—in the recipe for success. Any child who has read The Little Engine That Could knows this is so. For over 20 years, hundreds of researchers have been trying to tell us why this is so.