The role of academic self-efficacy in improving students’ metacognitive learning strategies

Introduction: Metacognitive strategies play an essential role in students’ learning and achievement; therefore, identifying their antecedents should be considered. This study indicated how self-efficacy, as motivational beliefs, affects the meta-cognitive strategies of medical students using a SEM approach. Method: The present study was a quantitative cross-sectional research design, using a Smart-PLS 3 approach in which 225 medical students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences were selected, using simple random sampling. Pintrich and De Groot’s (1990) students’ self-efficacy for learning and performance questionnaire and metacognitive learning strategies questionnaire developed by Dowson and McInerney (2004) were used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 21 and PLS 3 software. Results: The validity and reliability of research questionnaires were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed self-efficacy had a positive and significant relationship with planning (r=0.24, P<0.001), monitoring (r=0.30, P<0.001) and regulating (r=0.31, P<0.001). Furthermore, self-efficacy had direct, positive and statistically significant effect on metacognitive learning strategies (β=0.42, P<0.001). Conclusion: The findings suggest students who believe they are capable to learn and to do their academic tasks are more effective in adopting meta-cognitive strategies to achieve learning objectives than students who do not maintain such optimistic beliefs. Therefore, it is recommended that the officials of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences provide opportunities for strengthening the students’ self-efficacy and metacognitive learning strategies through providing training courses. In these courses students should be explicitly instructed how a specific learning strategy is adopted, why it is important and when and how it applies to the specific task.