THE EFFECT OF SELF-ASSESSMENT ON THE SELF-EFFICACY OF ...

[Pages:36]THE EFFECT OF SELF-ASSESSMENT ON THE SELF-EFFICACY OF STUDENTS STUDYING SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

by Javier Coronado-Aliegro B.A. in Languages, Universidad de Antioquia, 1991 M.A. in TESOL, West Virginia University, 2000

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of School of Education in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh 2006

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

This dissertation was presented by

Javier Coronado-Aliegro It was defended on September 26, 2006 and approved by

Richard Donado, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Instruction and Learning Amanda Godley, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Instruction and Learning Sharon Kruse, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership Dissertation Advisor: Daniel Dewey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Instruction and

Learning

ii

Copyright ? by Javier Coronado-Aliegro 2006 iii

THE EFFECT OF SELF-ASSESSMENT ON THE SELF-EFFICACY OF STUDENTS STUDYING SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Javier Coronado-Aliegro, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2006

Self-efficacy, the belief that one can complete a specific learning task effectively, is of vital importance for students studying Spanish as a foreign language. In prior research increased selfefficacy has been correlated with enhanced learner motivation, academic performance, and overall achievement. Theoretically, learners' ability to self-assess their own strengths and limitations during the learning process may be linked to overall self-efficacy. However, this association has not been tested empirically. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of a continuous self-assessment component on the self-efficacy of undergraduate students studying Spanish as a foreign language. One hundred and four undergraduate students from two different universities participated in this experimental study. 62 participants were in a treatment group, and 42 participants were in the control group. All participants completed the Spanish as a Foreign Language Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SFL-SEQ) during the second week of the semester (i.e., pretest) and during the final week of the semester (i.e., posttest). Participants in the treatment group also completed weekly Self-Assessment Questionnaires throughout the semester. Results of an Analysis of Covariance, which tested whether inter-group differences in self-efficacy were different between the control and treatments group at posttest after controlling for participants' pretest self-efficacy scores (i.e., the covariate) were not statistically significant (F [1,86] = 1.77, p = .19). However, results of a follow-up 2X2 Analysis

iv

of Variance, which tested whether intra-group self-efficacy increased from pretest to posttest, were statistically significant (F [1,87] = 12.40, p < .01). Pairwise t-tests for dependent measures showed that self-efficacy scores did increase significantly from pretest to posttest for treatment group participants (t = -7.18 [df = 53], p ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download