Medcamp's Effect on Junior High School Students' Medical Career Self‐Efficacy

Abstract

Medcamp, a 3-day problem-based career intervention for students entering the 9th grade, implemented each of the 4 antecedents for self-efficacy. Ten boys and 35 girls participated in Medcamp; of these, 35 completed and returned the Medical Career Self-Efficacy Scales (developed by the authors for their study) both at the beginning and at the end of the program. Three scales measured specific self-efficacy (tasks students had performed during Medcamp), related self-efficacy (other tasks students would complete by the second year of medical school), and general self-efficacy (included lifestyle variables and study habits). Results demonstrated significant increases in self-efficacy on all 3 scales. In 1977, Bandura defined self-efficacy as an individual's belief that she or he can successfully perform a behavior. Hackett and Betz (1981) brought this concept into career psychology by defining career self-efficacy as the belief in one's ability to pursue a given career. Career self-efficacy seems especially salient given educators' growing concern about students' diminished interest and performance in mathematics and science courses. Betz and Hackett (1983) reported that mathematics self-efficacy related significantly to choice of math-Joan D. Speight is a psychology resident at the Center for Healthy Aging, 3250 W. Market Street, Suite 105, Akron, OH 44333. Kenneth S.

Social Cognitive Approach to Career Development: An Overview

“…Success experiences tend to raise (and failures tend to lower) self-efficacy beliefs within a given performance domain. Efforts to enhance career-related self-efficacy have typically used some combination of the four sources (e.g., Betz, 1992;Speight, Rosenthal, Jones, & Gastenveld, 1995).…”

Applications of Self-Efficacy Theory to the Career Assessment of Women

“…Schifano and Betz (1997) are examining the effectiveness of an intervention focused on Realistic self-efficacy in increasing vocational interests and the range of nontraditional options among college women. Speight, Rosenthal, Jones, and Gastenveld (1995) showed the effectiveness of an intervention designed to increase self-efficacy with respect to medical careers in a sample of 45 ninth graders, including 35 girls and 13 African Americans.…”

Career and Vocational Assessment 1995-1996: A Biennial Review

“…The following articles included psychometric data on the various self-efficacy measures: A short form of the Career Decision Making Self-Efficacy Scale (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996); Skills Confidence Inventory ; Research Self-Efficacy Scale ; Task-Specific Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale (Osipow & Temple, 1996); self-efficacy for pursuing investigative careers (Lapan et al, 1996); Career Search Self-Efficacy Scale (Solberg et al, 1995); Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale-Revised (Pajares & Miller, 1995); and Medical Career Self-Efficacy Scales (Speight, Rosenthal, Jones, & Gastenveld, 1995). The earlier section on Social Cognitive Career Theory describes a number of self-efficacy studies.…”