A Cross-National Comparison Study on the Accuracy of Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Middle-School Mathematics Students

Abstract

In this cross-national study, the authors compared mathematics self-efficacy beliefs of American (n = 107) and Taiwanese (n = 188) middle-school students for level and calibration (accuracy and bias). Taiwanese students surpassed Americans in math achievement. American students evidenced slightly higher self-efficacy levels for easy math items but a steeper decline for moderately difficult items than did Taiwanese students. Nationality differences in level of self-efficacy diminished for difficult math items. For calibration, American students reported less accurate self-efficacy beliefs than did Taiwanese students for all items, although the accuracy of both groups declined with items of higher difficulty. Postperformance self-evaluation judgments of Taiwanese students decreased as item difficulty increased, whereas American students' judgments decreased from easy items to moderate items, but remained unchanged with difficult items. The authors found no effects for gender or gender-nationality interactions on any dependent measure.