Using Self-Efficacy Surveys as a Tool for Student Reflection

This lightning talk will describe how we have introduced self-efficacy surveys into an object-oriented programming course with the goal of encouraging reflection and positive learning behaviors on the part of our students. Self-efficacy surveys such as the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) are frequently used to quantify the effect of pedagogical innovations on student learning. This is motivated by an understanding that a positive attitude of self-efficacy can lead to improved student retention and outcomes. Some authors have also written about the benefits of measuring self-efficacy to help instructors better support individual students. We conjectured that asking students to reflect on their own sense of self-efficacy could help students make positive choices about their learning behaviors. For the past two semesters we have deployed a self-efficacy survey at the start of the course and at midterm - two natural points for students to consider how they are approaching their coursework. Students assess elements of their own self-efficacy as well as answer open-ended questions about actions they can take to support their learning and barriers they are concerned may get in the way of their learning. We will present our survey, describe how it is used in the course, and discuss some initial positive effects we have observed.