Efficacy management is the penultimate strategy for motivation regulation discussed in Wolters’ (2003) article. Students’ self-efficacy, or beliefs about whether they will be successful on a task, are the most consistent predictor of students’ choice, effort, and persistence both in and outside of academia (Bandura, 1977).
I read so many articles for my PhD and self-efficacy was usually always significant in whatever model was being tested in any article.
When I was a grad student, I knew that my beliefs about if I thought I could do something were usually driving my motivation to complete tasks. There are three efficacy management strategies that are especially useful for the largely self-driven nature of grad school: proximal goal-setting, defensive pessimism, and efficacy self-talk.
Proximal Goal-Setting
You’re probably already doing this one, but proximal goal-setting is any time you break down a complex or large task into smaller tasks (Wolters, 2003).
For example, if you have a 30 page article to read for a class, you may decide to read the introduction and conclusion first, and then take notes as you read the rest of the article.
Or, if you’re working on writing your thesis, you may decide to write five bullet points for each heading in your introduction to break the larger task into smaller segments.
Proximal goal-setting is more effective when it is combined with longer term goal setting as well. This is something we talk a lot about in our free webinar that you can access here: webinar.howtogradschool.com
Defensive Pessimism
Defensive pessimism as a motivation regulation strategy, is when you listen to all those doubts and take time to sit with them. You may write down the list of reasons why you think you are going to never finish the introduction of your thesis, or why your scholarship application will get rejected. By doing this, you are facing the negative feelings you may have about a task.
By recognizing how unprepared you think you are, you can identify what you may need to do to avoid the potential reasons you listed. This in turn, can help increase your motivation because it helps bring that perceived never-ending list of reasons why you’ll not succeed under more control.
Efficacy Self-Talk
I previously wrote about goal-oriented self-talk, and efficacy self-talk is similar in that being aware of how you talk to yourself is important to regulate your motivation. Efficacy self-talk is when the way you talk to yourself while working on a task is linked to your beliefs about how well you’ll think you’ll do on the task.
For example, when I was working on a conference proposal for a competitive conference (e.g., less than 1/3 of submissions were accepted to present at the conference), I used efficacy self-talk to help motivate myself to write the draft of the proposal. I’d say things like “Keep working – you don’t know if you’ll get in but at least you are trying” or “You’re building your confidence in writing conference proposals by writing this one” or “You may not get accepted, but at least you’ll gain experience writing about your dissertation work.”
I hope these three strategies have showed you that efficacy management is probably something you’re already doing and can be a great way to increase your self-efficacy and motivation in grad school.
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