SELF-EFFICACY

Self-efficacy beliefs play a crucial role in shaping second language learners’ engagement in valued tasks and in influencing their learning outcomes. This chapter starts by defining self-efficacy beliefs, distinguishing them from related constructs, exploring how they have been elicited in second language acquisition research in the last two decades and considering their predictive power. The chapter then reviews research evidence from studies that have investigated the self-efficacy beliefs of second language learners in relation to factors such as gender, personality, and anxiety, and with regard to the development of learning strategies and specific sub-skills of listening, reading, writing, and speaking. There is then a review of methodological issues before applications of the research are considered and future directions are suggested.