Reid is a student in Ms. Long\'s sixth grade class. Reid loves to read and alway
ID: 3484830 • Letter: R
Question
Reid is a student in Ms. Long's sixth grade class. Reid loves to read and always has several library books checked out, but he does not like to write. He believes he is incapable of writing. In fifth grade, he missed school during the unit about the parts of a letter, and his attempts to write letters for assignments were weak and unimpressive. He was present when the class studied how to write the opening, closing, and body of an essay, but he wasn't interested and didn't make much of an effort to complete assignments. His grades on writing assignments have been poor for two years. Explain the probable sources of Reid's low self-efficacy for writing assignments.
Explanation / Answer
Bandura proposed the theory of self-efficacy, it is the belief in oneself that one has the calibre to produce required behaviour while dealing with tough situations and that one can overcome problems in life. It is crucial for the development of a healthy self-concept.
According to Bandura, there are four sources of self-efficacy and these sources are working in Reid's life too to promote his low self-efficacy for writing.
1. Past experiences: As stated, Reid missed school during the unit about the parts of a letter and he also doesn't like writing though he is an active reader. Experiences are very important to develop self-efficacy, good experiences give way to high self-esteem and if the person has performed poorly then it gives rise to low self-esteem. His experience with writing hasn't been good because he wasn't interested and didn't put much effort to write well which gradually became a reason for his belief that he can't do well because he wasn't performing well in the class.
2. Modelling: He didn't have any model to look forward to and before he could understand that he had already started believing that he wasn't good enough. Maybe he never got a chance to model someone and see the rewards associated with it which could help him in developing high self-esteem.
3. Social persuasion: People around us play a vital role in developing us as a person and having our identity and as a student, the very close person around us is our teachers and parents so they impact us a lot. It is possible that his teacher never promoted or motivated him to write or tried talking to him about it so that they may come up with some solution and also that his parent never bothered to look into it. So he never got any verbal persuasion from anyone which could motivate him to write and correct his mistakes.
4. Emotional and physiological state: The state in which a person forms his concept of self-efficacy is also very important, emotionally charged events have a lasting effect on us and direct the level of perceived self-efficacy. So, it is possible that his poor performance and the outcome lead to emotional responses like racing heartbeats, sweating, ETC which promoted in acquiring low self-esteem