Page 250 - Making Instruction Work

chap 19 3/11/97 5:15 PM Page 236

236 making instruction work

Because such people are handicapped in their ability to suc-
ceed, and because instructors and parents are the most com-
mon causes of low self-efficacy, the importance of learning
how to strengthen self-efficacy in your students cannot be
overstated.

How is Self-Efficacy Strengthened?

The goal is to facilitate a match between an actual level of
skill and self-judgments about that level of skill, so that people
really believe they can do what they can in fact do. Here’s how.

1. Performance mastery. The most powerful action is to
make sure your students are given an opportunity
to practice until they achieve mastery,and to help them to
perceive that they have, in fact, mastered. Help them
to understand that their mastery came about as the result
of their own efforts, rather than as a result of the instruc-
tor’s efforts, or because of a job aid, or because of luck.

2. Feedback. Provide task-diagnostic, rather than self-
diagnostic, feedback for practice efforts.

Self-diagnostic feedback interprets less-than-perfect
performance as a personal deficiency. “You just aren’t
motivated enough;” “Maybe you just don’t have the
talent for this work;” “How many times will I have to
tell you this?”“You’re just not good at this.”“You’re not
working up to your potential.” Self-diagnostic feed-
back blames imperfect performance on failings of the
individual.

Task-diagnostic feedback focuses on the task being per-
formed. Failure is used as information through which
the performance may be improved, rather than as evi-