"Self-efficacy: a key to improving the motivation of struggling students" is an article written by Margolis and McCabe. The authors provide adequate explanations on how teachers can use different learning strategies to enhance learners' motivation. Students with a strong sense of self-efficacy display readiness, persistence and produce good achievement. On the other hand, learners with low self-efficacy in academics often resist participating in challenging learning activities because they think they cannot succeed. Therefore, teachers should help students develop a high self-efficacy by reinforcing persistency, assisting learners in developing critical personal goals, and stressing peer modeling (Margolis & McCabe, 2003). The ability to helps students build high self-efficacy depends on two factors: providing struggling learners work at their proper independent and instructional level and reinforcing adherence to institutional principle. Teachers need to avoid unnecessary tasks that provoke anxiety and build frustrations, especially for struggling learners. Subsequently, teachers should follow the established guidelines that help determine learners' independent and instructional levels to strengthen their efficacy.
Teaching essential learning strategies is also another way of developing efficacy in students. The methods enable students to understand different ways of tackling academic work. Various techniques may be employed when teaching such as, step-by-step explanation on course work, feedback provision, and developing enough opportunities for guided practice. Also, teachers can raise struggling learners' success expectations by engaging them in cooperatives learning tasks that fall within their range of abilities. The provision of strategy reference cards also increases learners' motivation and self-efficacy (Margolis & McCabe, 2003). Reference cards help in presenting and illustrating various learning strategies in a simple way and lessen comprehension time. Furthermore, providing age-appropriate extrinsic reinforcers like toys and stickers enables learners to develop interest and motivation in their academic works.
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Personal Reflection
The article is essential as it explains various ways of helping struggling learners develop a high sense of self-efficacy. I agree that teachers must choose tasks within the struggling learners' ability to help them realize the necessary skills that lead to success. Giving learners doable tasks allows them to enhance their effort feedback, thus increasing self-efficacy, achievement, and motivation. It is true that stressing peer modeling also increases learners' motivation. Peer modeling is advantageous as it shows struggling students how their colleagues overcome mistakes by applying new skills and strategies. I concur with the idea of teaching students ways of making facilitative attribution to strengthen self-efficacy. The facilitative attributions enable struggling students to associate success with critical factors like persistence, efforts, and appropriate cognitive strategies.
The concept of helping learners establish important personal goals is also practical when developing self-efficacy. Imposing short-term goals enable struggling students to increase their motivation level because those goals are often measurable and achievable. I also concur that incorporating other crucial motivational factors such as student involvement while teaching students helps them increase their motivation and interest. The ability to successfully implement the learning strategies increases the likelihood that struggling students will gain high inspiration and display involvement, persistence, and success.
Article Critique
Self-efficacy is fundamental in enhancing the motivation and interest of struggling students. The authors understand the need for developing a high sense of self-efficacy in struggling students. The teaching approaches that Margolis and McCabe have provided are achievable and can be easily applied by teachers while engaging with their students. The article targets educators, and it has used a langue and examples that teachers can understand effortlessly. A short provision of introduction and conclusion enables the reader to understand the thesis of the article appropriately. However, the authors have failed to provide their educational achievements to help readers verify their experience level in the teaching field. Also, the authors have been unable to provide research studies that link high self-efficacy to educational achievement.
Reference
Margolis, H., & McCabe, P. P. (2003). Self-efficacy: A key to improving the motivation of struggling students. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth , vol. 47, no, 4, pp. 162-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/10459880309603362
