Academic Achievement Febr

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Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efficacy beliefs inself-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem

Antonio Zuffian a,, Guido Alessandri b, Maria Gerbino b, Bernadette Paula Luengo Kanacri a,Laura Di Giunta a, Michela Milioni a, Gian Vittorio Caprara b

a Interuniversity Center for Research on the Genesis and Development of Prosocial and Antisocial Motivations (CIRMPA), Sapienza University of Rome, Italyb Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 14 December 2011

Received in revised form 16 June 2012

Accepted 15 July 2012

Keywords:

Academic achievement

Intelligence

Personality traits

Self-esteem

Self-efficacy beliefs in self-regulated learning

The present study examined the contribution of self-efficacy beliefs in self-regulated learning (SESRL) in

predicting academic achievement at the end of junior high school above and beyond the effects of previous

academic achievement, gender, socioeconomic status, intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem. Partic-

ipants included 170 (87 females) eighth grade students (Mage=13.47) in a junior high school located in a

small town near Rome (Italy). All measures were administered at the beginning of eighth grade. Hierarchical

regression analysis supported the unique contribution of SESRL on academic achievement at the end of the

school year. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Academic success exerts a prominent influence on adolescents'

life students as a major indicator of psychological adjustment (Cole,

Martin, Peeke, Seroczynski, & Fier, 1999; Crystal et al., 1994) and a

source of rewards and satisfaction (Salmela-Aro & Tynkkynen, 2010).

As a consequence, particular interest in investigating the early and

major psychological predictorsof adolescent's success at school is easily

understandable. In particular, it is important for educators to identify

student characteristics that can be modified in school practice to pro-

mote better academic performance. To this aim, social cognitive theo-

rists have stressed the role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Self-Regulated

Learning(SESRL) as predictors of academic performance (e.g., Caprara,

Vecchione, Alessandri, Gerbino, & Barbaranelli, 2011; Zimmerman &

Schunk, 2004). The scope of the present study is to examine the unique

contribution of SESRL on academic achievement over and beyond the

role of other individual predictors such as intelligence, personality

traits, and self-esteem.

1.1. Individual predictors of academic achievement

Intelligence has consistently been demonstrated to predict aca-

demic achievement (Gagn & St Pre, 2002; Laidra, Pullman, & Allik,

2007), even after controlling for gender, prior academic achievement,

and personality (Di Fabio & Busoni, 2007; Leeson, Ciarrochi, & Heaven,

2008). Within the Big-Five Personality model (i.e., openness/intellect,conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism/

emotional instability), a comprehensive taxonomy of individual

differences in personality (McCrae & Costa, 1999), conscientious-

ness and openness has been shown to be strongly associated with

academic achievement (Caprara et al., 2011; Poropat, 2009). It is

likely that conscientious adolescents perform better at school be-

cause of their ability to make plans, to regulate their behavior in ac-

cordance to their purposes, to make the effort that is needed to

learn, and to demonstrate persistence. Likewise, adolescents open

to experiences may be more apt to learn because they appreciate

knowledge and discovery (Caprara et al., 2011). In comparison,

agreeableness, emotional instability, and extraversion have not

shown consistent significant associations with academic success

as do openness and conscientiousness (e.g., Duff, Boyle, Dunleavy,

& Ferguson, 2004; Laidra et al., 2007; Poropat, 2009). Yet, in the

present work, we prefer to include all of the Big-Five traits in

order to offer a compelling picture of the links between personality

and academic achievement.

In addition, self-esteem (i.e., how people judge themselves as

worthy of value) has also been associated with academic achieve-

ment (Baumeister, Campbell, Kruegger, & Vohs, 2003), mainly as a

motivational factor (i.e., students try to excel at school in order to

maintain a general positive image of their self). Social cognitive the-

orists have emphasized the pervasive role that SESRL exerts on ad-

olescents' academic motivation and achievement (e.g., Bandura,

Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996, 2001; Caprara et al., 2008,

Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 158 162

Corresponding author at: CIRMPA, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78,

00185 Roma, Italy. Tel.: +39 0649917665; fax: +39 064469115.

E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Zuffian).

1041-6080/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / l i n d i f
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10416080http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10416080http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010mailto:[email protected]://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010


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2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2004). In managing their own learning,

self-efficacious students are confident in their capacity to meet

school requirements, dutifully plan and organize their academic ac-

tivities, perceive difficulties as challenges, do not get discouraged

by setbacks, persist in their efforts when needed to accomplish

school tasks, select peers who share their same interest in achieve-

ment, and contribute to creating conditions that foster learning

(Caprara et al., 2008).

Although some studies have considered the combined infl

uence ofintelligence and personality traits (Farsides & Woodfield, 2003; Laidra

et al., 2007), of personality and SESRL (Caprara et al., 2011), and of

self-esteem and SESRL (Lane, Lane, & Kyprianou, 2004), to our knowl-

edge, no study has simultaneously addressed the contribution of all of

these variables on academic achievement. Drawing on the work of sev-

eral authors (e.g., Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Chamorro-Premuzic &

Furnham, 2004), we hypothesized that intelligence, personality traits,

self-esteem, and SESRL operate in concert to predict academic perfor-

mance by favoring intellectual curiosity, knowledge acquisition (espe-

cially openness and intelligence), and motivational effort (especially

conscientiousness, self-esteem, and SESRL). In conceiving human

personality as a system entailing different levels of functioning

(e.g., Caprara et al., 2011; McAdams, 1995), one may view intelli-

gence, personality traits, and self-esteem as individuals' basic po-

tentials (Cattell, 1987; Kamakura, Jukoando, & Ono, 2001; Kendler,

Gardner, & Prescott, 1998; Loehlin, McCrae, Costa, & John, 1998),

and SESRL as the personal beliefs (mostly derived from experience)

that enablepeople to turn their basic predispositionsinto proper be-

haviors conducive to academic success (Caprara et al., 2008). Fol-

lowing this reasoning, we conceptualized SESRL as operating at an

intermediate level between basic predispositions and behavior

(Caprara et al., 2011). Accordingly, we hypothesized that SESRL at

the beginning of eighth grade (the last year of junior high school in

Italy) may exert a unique role in predicting academic achievement

at the end of the same school year above and beyond the role of intelli-

gence, personality traits, and self-esteem. In testing our hypotheses, we

controlled previous academic achievement at the end of sixth grade

(thefirst yearof juniorhigh school in Italy) and socio-demographic var-

iables such as genderand socioeconomicstatus (SES) which are typical-ly associated with academic success (Lindberg, Hyde, Petersen, & Linn,

2010; Nowell & Hedges, 1998; Sirin, 2005).

2. Materials and method

2.1. Participants

The participants were 170 young adolescents (87 females) who

were part of a longitudinal project that started in 2008 with the pri-

mary goal of investigating the personal and social determinants of ad-

olescents' adjustment. The participating students were drawn from

one public junior high school in Genzano, a community located near

Rome. Participants were beginning the eighth grade (Mage=13.47)

when data on traits, intelligence, self-esteem, and SESRL measureswere collected. The majority of students were from intact families

(93.4%), and only 7.6% were from single-parent homes (separated

or divorced). Approximately 8% of parents held a professional or

managerial rank; 26% were merchants or operators of other busi-

nesses; 26% were skilled workers; 38% were unskilled workers; and

2% were unemployed. The majority of parents had a high school de-

gree (46.4%), whereas 23.7% had a university degree or beyond. Ap-

proximately 20.5% finished middle school and only 9.4% achieved an

elementary or less than elementary school education.

2.2. Procedure

We obtained approval for our longitudinal study from the school

council, composed of parent and teacher representatives. A signed

consent form was subsequently obtained from parents for each stu-

dent. All measures (except for academic achievement) were collected

in the classrooms by well-trained researchers who clearly articulated

the purpose and response choices of the questionnaires to students.

2.3. Measures

Measures of intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, SESRL,

and SES were collected at the beginning of eighth grade during the20092010 school year. Academic achievement was obtained from

school records at the end of sixth and eighth grades.

SESRL. The SESRL scale (Bandura et al., 1996) includes 9 items

(=.85) scored on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1= cannot do at all

to 5= highly certain can do). Participants rated their beliefs in their

perceived capability related to self-regulating learning activities,

such as the capacity to planand organize academic activities, the ability

to structure environments conducive to learning, and self-motivation

for academic work (e.g., How well can you study when there are

other interesting things to do?).

2.3.1. Intelligence

We utilized the Italian versionof the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test, a

nonverbal measure aimed at measuring individuals' analytic and rea-

soning ability (i.e., fluid intelligence), for children from 8 to 13 years

old (Cattel & Cattel, 1987). This instrument comprises two parallel

forms (form A and B), each consists of four subtests: series, analogies,

matrices, and classification. For our purposes, we considered the mean

of forms A and B as a measure of intelligence. The SpearmanBrown

split-half coefficient of reliability was .77.

2.3.2. Personality traits

Participants rated their personality traits on 30 items (6 items for

each trait) in a reduced version of the Big-Five QuestionnaireChildren

(BFQ-C; Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003). The psycho-

metric properties of the BFQ-C have been firmly established in several

samples of Italian adolescents in junior high schools (Barbaranelli,

Fida, Paciello, Di Giunta, & Caprara, 2008). Participants rated the fre-

quency of the behavior noted in the item using a 5-point Likert scale(1= almost never to 5=almost always). The openness scale (=.83)

included items related to self-reported intellectual attitudes, especially

in the school domain (e.g., I easily learn what I study at school). The

conscientiousness scale (=.74) assessed the orderliness, precision

and the fulfilling of commitments (e.g., I only play when I'm finished

my homework). The extraversion scale (=.72) assessed characteris-

tics such as activity, enthusiasm, and self-confidence (e.g., I like to

joke). Theagreeableness scale (=.71) assessed concernand sensitiv-

ity toward others (e.g., I trust in others). The emotional instability

scale (=.84) included items assessing feelings of anxiety, depression,

and anger (e.g., I easily get angry).

2.3.3. Self-esteem

We used the 10-item Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale (=.78),which measures the extent to which participants feel they possess good

qualities and have achieved personal success (e.g., I feel that I have a

number of good qualities). Each item is scored on a 4-point scale rang-

ing from 1=strongly disagree to 4=strongly agree.

2.3.4. Academic achievement

Children's achievement was collected at two time points: at the

end of sixth and eighth grades through the use of original school re-

cords. In the Italian school system, teachers evaluate their students

by using a ten-level gradationfor each subject (from 1= extremely insuf-

ficientto 10=excellent). We created a composite measure of academic

achievement from grades obtained in the primary school subjects:

Italian, math, science, foreign language (English and French), and so-

cial studies.

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2.3.5. SES

SES was defined using the information reported by the students

concerning their parents' occupation and education. We consider

this variable as the factor score from a confirmatory factorial analysis

in which SES was a single dimension defined by parents' education

and occupation (Caprara et al., 2011). We used the weighted least

square minimum variance function of Mplus 5.1 (Muthn & Muthn,

2006), particularly recommended for non normal or categorical data

(Flora & Curran, 2004), as the method of estimation.

2.4. Analytical approach

Initially, we examined the pattern of missing values of the variables

considered in our study. Then, we computed thezero-order correlations

among all the variables.1 This was followed by a hierarchical regression

analysis involving the role of intelligence, personalitytraits, self-esteem,

and SESRL as predictors of academic achievement in theeighthgrade. In

an effort to control for the impact of previous academic achievement,

gender, and SES, these variables were entered in thefirst step of the re-

gression. The second step included intelligence, personality traits and

self-esteem, while the third step included SESRL.

3. Results

3.1. Preliminary analyses

Only one student was missing data on academic achievement,

whereas some participants had missing values for the other variables

considered in this study. The data met the assumption for missing

completely at random (MCAR): Little (1988) test was not significant

2(85)=88.548, p=.375, namely, the missingness on one variable is

unrelated to the other measured or unmeasured variables. In order to

not reduce the number of subjects in the analyses, we computed the

maximum-likelihood estimates of missing data via the expectation

maximization algorithm using SPSS 18 (Enders, 2010).

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and zero-order

correlations among the variables. Prior and later academic achieve-

ments were strongly correlated; self-esteem was uncorrelated with

academic achievement at both sixth and eighth grades. Gender, SES,

conscientiousness, openness, and SESRL were all significantly corre-

lated with later academic achievement.

3.2. Regression analysis

Table 2 outlines the resultsof the hierarchical regression analysis. At

the first step, only academic achievement at sixth grade significantly

predicted lateracademic achievement. The addition of intelligence, per-

sonality traits, and self-esteem in the regression equation significantly

improved the variance explained. However, only intelligence, openness,

and extraversion demonstrated significant regression coefficients. Thesubsequent addition of SESRL significantly contributed to the explained

variance. Accordingly, SESRL predicted academic achievement at eighth

grade, controlling for the effects of all previous variables.2 The effects of

intelligence, openness, and extraversion remained significant. In thisfinalstep, SESRL explainedapproximately 2% of thevariance in academ-

ic achievement at eighth grade; previous academic achievement about

18%; intelligence, openness, and extraversion explained respectively

about 1%, 2%, and 2% of the variance.

4. Discussion

The above findings corroborate our hypothesis attesting to the

unique contribution of SESRL to the prediction of later academic

achievement above and beyond (1) previous academic achieve-

ment, (2) gender, (3) SES, (4) intelligence, (5) personality traits,

and (6) self-esteem. Gender and SES did not predict academic

achievement at eighth grade in any step of our analysis. The beliefs

students hold about their capacities to regulate their learning, in-stead, resulted one of the most important predictor of success at

school after previous academic achievement. This is in accordance

with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997) and highlights the im-

portance of previous academic achievement in founding the basis for

mastery beliefs which, in turn, operate as feedback for the development

of SESRL thereby further contributing to academic success. In addition,

intelligence contributed to predicting academic achievement. Thisfind-

ing is in line with the results of previous studies suggesting the influ-

ence of intellectual abilities in fostering students' transitions across

increasingly difficult grades (e.g., Laidra et al., 2007).

Openness predicted later academic achievement in accordance

with recent results (Caprara et al., 2011) supporting the significant

impact of openness on academic achievement in earlier (eighth) rath-

er than later (thirteenth) grades. Openness in earlier grades accounts

for success at school above and beyond intelligence, as curiosity and

interest in learning should provide motivation to learn over and

above students' cognitive abilities. However, these same skills may

be less influential as compared to the more focused discipline that is

required for learning in subsequent grades. Extraversion negatively

and significantly predicted academic achievement. This is consistent

with studies reporting a negative association between extraversion

and academic performance (Rolfhus & Ackerman, 1999) usually

explained in terms of differences in time spent engaging in knowl-

edge acquisition with extraverts spending more time socializing and

introverts spending more time studying (Poropat, 2009). Surprising-

ly, conscientiousness did not account for later academic achievement

as found in other research (Poropat, 2009). This result is likely related

to the high stability of academic achievement in our study. According

to the literature (Poropat, 2009), agreeableness and emotional insta-bility did not predict academic achievement.

General self-esteem did not exert anysignificant influence on laterac-

ademic achievement. This result is notnew (Baumeister et al.,2003),and

may mostly depend on the specific conceptualization of self-esteem

(Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper,2004). Indeed, there aremore specific man-

ifestations of self-esteem, such as academic self-esteem (i.e., individuals'

personal attribution of their own worth in the academic domain), that

may be more effective predictors of academic performance (Pullmann

& Allik, 2008; Valentine et al., 2004). Future studies should consider the

predictive power of academic self-esteem jointly with SESRL.

We believe that SESRL, in comparison to intelligence, personality

traits, and self-esteem, may have more practical value in academic set-

tings. Indeed, social cognitive theorists (Bandura, 1997) have shown

how self-efficacy beliefs can be fostered and changed, principallythrough the mechanisms of mastery experiences and modeling. In this

sense, several programs have already reported encouraging results

about how self-regulation training for students can improve their aca-

demic performance (Randi & Corno, 2000; Zimmerman & Schunk,

2004). Conversely, less is known about the possibility of modifying in-

telligence and personality traits. Moreover, previous programs that

have tried to improve academic performance through a change in

self-esteem have demonstrated null or even counterproductive out-

comes (Baumeister et al., 2003).

5. Conclusion

Early learning on how to deal with increasingly challenging school

demands on a daily basis may enable students to avoid experiencing

1 A confirmatory factorial analysis supported the separateness of the items of each

construct examined in the present study. The results are available upon request to

the first author.2 We also repeated the above analyses by considering each specific school subject

one at a time. The contribution of SESRL was found to be statistically significant

(pb

.05) in each instance.

160 A. Zuffian et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 158162
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school failures which, ultimately, may negatively affect life choices.

This is very important in the Italian context, where the transition

from junior (sixth to eighth) to senior high school (ninth to thir-

teenth) represents a delicate phase in which students, for the first

time, individually choose the academic path they will follow. In

this process, the role played by teachers and parents as primary ed-

ucational agents capable of helping adolescents in setting their goals

and offering feedback when necessary is irreplaceable (Pajares,

2002). Building strong SESRL as early as possible allows studentsto use their self-regulated skills more automatically over subse-

quent school years and to take more control of their academic

lives. In continuing efforts to increase our knowledge base in this

important domain, it is important that future studies (1) replicate

our results with non-western students, (2) consider the impact of

SESRL at different school levels, (3) examine the unique role that

SESRL plays when other important predictors of academic achieve-

ment, such as prosocial behavior (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli,

Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2000), parental support (Cutrona, Cole,

Colangelo, Assouline, & Russell, 1994), and teacherstudent rela-

tionship (Battistich, Schaps, & Wilson, 2004) are taken into account,

and (4) integrate the analysis with more subject-specific SESRL

measures in order to increase the predictive power of SESRL and to

specify its role among different school-subjects.

Acknowledgments

This study has been funded by the Italian Ministry of Health as part

of a National Strategic Research Program (grant RFPS-2007-5-641730)

on child and adolescent mental health.

The authors thank Dr. Beatrice Bridglall, Dr. Richard Fabes, and

Dr. Carol Martin for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this

article.

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Table 1

Descriptive statistics and correlations among gender, SES, intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, SESRL, and academic achievement.

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Gender 1

2. SES .007 1

3. Intelligence 30.19 4.44 .079 .043 1

4. Openness 3.51 0.68 .148 .149 .204 1

5. C onscientiou sness 3.41 0 .73 .14 7 .025 .161 .420 1

6. Extraversion 4.26 0.56 .111 .018 .032 .037 .217 1

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18. Emotional instability 2.69 0.81 .041 .024 .026 .114 .250 .143 .085 1

9. Self-esteem 3.09 0.46 .033 .037 .050 .237 .250 .159 .039 .319 1

10. SESRL 3.69 0.75 .267 .079 .100 .658 .661 .162 .356 .224 .191 1

11. Academic achievement

6th

7.53 1.22 .164 .331 .267 .442 .132 .126 .098 .106 .139 .421 1

12. Academic achievement

8th

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Conscientiousness (.107) .081 .152 (.024) .019 .777

Extraversion ( .243) .142 .004 (.254) .148 .002

Agreeableness (.023) .015 .772 (.013) .008 .871

Em. instability (.018) .015 .757 (.036) .030 .526

Self-esteem ( .072) .035 .485 (.041) .020 .685

SESRL (.278) .218 .005

F(3, 166)= 70.429, p =.000 F(7, 159)= 8.368, p =.000 F(1, 158)= 8.215, p =.005R2 .56 .68 .70

Note. Unstandardized (reported in parentheses) and standardized regression coefficients with their relative p-value.

161A. Zuffian et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 158162
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