| Academic self-efficacy is associated with academic success; the more positive or stronger the individual's academic self-efficacy, the more likely the individual will be successful in an academic environment. Prior research by Bandura (1989, 1993, 1997) suggested that self-efficacy influences not only activity choice but also the degrees to which goals are pursued in spite of the presence of obstacles. In the literature, self-efficacy is a theoretical framework successfully used to study why academic achievement and persistence in a literacy program differs among students who have similar knowledge and skills. Therefore it was hypothesized that, if an adult had strong academic self-efficacy, he or she was significantly more likely to stay and obtain their academic goal when enrolled in an adult basic education program than an adult with weak academic self-efficacy who enrolls in an adult basic education program with an academic goal. The major findings from both correlation and multiple regression analysis in this study support the suggested self-efficacy influence on success in an academic environment. For the population represented in the current study, self-efficacy scores were found to predict hours and weeks attended as well as credits earned, high school diploma, and GED goal completion. The study also found that there was a relationship between completion of a high school diploma or GED and the number of weeks and hours attended. The findings of this study add knowledge on adult students to the literature in the field of educational psychology. The practical implications of these results potentially could assist adult educators as they develop practices to increase the strength of a student's academic self-efficacy and help increase their students' ability to stay in an adult education program until goal completion, consequently lowering the dropout rate within programs. |
