Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Self-Efficacy in Military Cadets
Keywords:
self-efficacy; military officers; theory; practice; education, self-efficacy; enactive mastery experiences; vicarious experiences; verbal persuasion; physiological and mental states; military officers; theory; practice; educationAbstract
Within the military profession the will to succeed and to strive
for results that go beyond what is expected, is the difference between
success and failure. The demands of war can be extreme and a crucial
factor for the will to succeed is the education of and training on selfefficacy. Self-efficacy can be obtained either through theory or through
practice. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether
officer cadets at the Norwegian Military Academy felt that there was a
correlation between theory and practice when it came to Bandura’s four
factors of how to increase self-efficacy. The four factors were enactive
mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and
physiological and mental states. Method: A self-developed
questionnaire with 14 questions was used in order to investigate the
research question. 10 questions related to theoretical and practical
aspects of self-efficacy was developed. The last question was intended to
find out which of the four factors that had the largest impact upon selfefficacy, and respondents were forced to choose one of the four factors.
50 officer cadets at the Norwegian Military Academy participated in the
study. Results: A correlation between Bandura’s theory and the practice
was found. The factors enactive mastery experiences and vicarious
experience were found to have a high correlation between theory and
practice. The highest correlation between theory and practice was found
for the factor verbal persuasion. The lowest correlation between theory
and practice was found for the factor physiological and mental states.
However, when forced to choose which factor that in total had the
largest impact upon self-efficacy, a clear majority of respondents
indicated the factor enactive mastery experiences.
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