Maureen Gatto

Children and Self-efficacy Maureen Gatto

Professionals working with children have continually sought ways of helping them reach their potential. Children face many challenges in life that may hinder healthy development. Enhancing self-efficacy offers a means of assisting children in overcoming obstacles and fulfilling their talents. Self-efficacy is based on a personal belief in the capability to perform certain tasks and significantly impacts on achievement. Children with high self-efficacy will try harder, persevere when challenged and take responsibility for success or failure. This book demonstrates that self-efficacy interventions can be effective with groups of children. It explains the many facets of self-efficacy, reviews the relevant literature, offers a group model of treatment, makes suggestions for group curriculum and provides scales to measure outcomes. The use of self-efficacy principles in practice to help motivate and empower clients are explained. Suggestions are made for future research.