Does self-efficacy contribute to the development of students’ motivation across the transition from secondary to higher education?

The transition from secondary to higher education is a challenging process, in which the development of students’ motivation plays a pivotal role. The current study examines whether self-efficacy – and how it develops – is able to explain the growth in motivation. The current longitudinal study included five waves, across a period of 25 months (i.e. start of the final year of secondary education until the beginning of the second year of higher education). Results show – contrary to our hypothesis based on the self-determination theory and social cognitive theory – that the growth in autonomous motivation positively predicts the growth in self-efficacy and that this ‘reversed’ model is superior in terms of fit and explained variance to the hypothesized model.

Publication year:2019

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:1

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open