Prison education is an important aspect of adult education. The study investigated current participation in prison education, as well as previous convictions, sentence length, and the portion of sentence served as predictors of academic self-efficacy. Survey data derived from prisoners in all Norwegian prisons provided the empirical evidences for the analyses. A principal component analysis of a 40-item academic self-efficacy questionnaire revealed self-efficacy components in literacy, mathematics, ICT, and self-regulated learning. Educational participation had a positive influence on self-efficacy in both mathematics and self-regulated learning. Participants who reported no previous conviction scored higher than others did on self-efficacy in mathematics, self-regulated learning, and ICT. Furthermore, the results showed that perceived efficacy in ICT decreased with longer sentence length. Portion of sentence served was not significantly related to any of the four self-efficacy components. The findings are discussed with reference to a need for mastery experiences in prison and implications for policy and practice

The aim of this study was to examine Norwegian prisoners' educational motives, and how previous incarceration, sentence length, and sentence served influence such motives. Three motive categories emerged: future planning (Factor 1), social reasons and escapism (Factor 2), and competence building (Factor 3). Among prisoners who participated in education, longer sentence predicted high score on both Factor 1 and Factor 3. Also, with the greater proportion of sentence served, participants scored higher on Factor 3. Among non-participants, longer sentence predicted high score on Factor 3. Previous incarceration was not significantly related to the educational motives for either of the two groups.