E-LEARNING AND SELF EFFICIENCY IN TECHNICAL TEACHING

ABSTRACT

The higher use of technology in online education has demanded of teachers a wider reflexion of how they can promote motivation in their students within virtual teaching environments.

Nowadays we can observe in a classroom context, a big demotivation cause that could be understood as the responsible element for unsuccessfulness. Other variables may however contribute to this reality, like different learning rhythms, nonattendance problems and social problems that result in self efficiency promotion difficulties when speaking of more traditional methodologies, which see the academic success distant from the students’ beliefs in him and in his ability to succeed. Self efficiency involves all of the students’personality components and must be regarded as a part of the teaching / learning process.

Some issues arise in this case: can we build a program that promotes self efficiency through online teaching? After the application and assessment can we consider that students with wider self efficiency have more success in acquiring skills? In Technical Teaching the application of a skills and self efficiency program can translate in larger knowledge?

On a sample of thirty four students from a Technical School of Lisbon, with average of 18 years old, the program was tested and evaluated.

This way we suggest a program that shows the real promotion reasons of self efficiency in online teaching, that means, able to give a didactic response, motivating the students’ self efficiency and leading him to overcome his difficulties and academic unsuccessfulness.

This dissertation is organized by: context, objectives, methods, results and reflexions.

PROBLEM: high school students (12th grade) of a Technical School, masculine and feminine genders with an age average of 18 years old, of a 34 elements class.

OBJECTIVE: promotion of social, emotional, academic self-efficiency, as well as the self-efficiency specific of HSST (Higiene Saúde e Segurança no Trabalho) - Work Hygiene Health and Security subject.

METHOD: the instruments used were the SEQ-C2 questionnaire before and after the program application, as well as specific questionnaires of HSST (in a first moment “What can I learn…” and after the program application “What have I learnt”).

RESULTS: they show differences before and after the program application, especially that girls have increased more than boys their emotional self-efficiency after the program application. Its use also enlarged the specific self efficiency level, which translated in a bigger skills acquirement. All scales are consistent and relate to each other; the self-efficiency scales are valid.

REFLEXIONS: the obtained results were satisfactory, given that all the tests show a positive result and significant self-efficiency increases when compared to the beginning of the program application. On a more practical level this program contributed to a more effective use, more directed to a society of knowledge, where students believed they were capable. Of that belief in them knowledge arose, because students learn when they have an urge to do it and when they believe they are capable.

KEYWORDS: Auto-Efficacy; e-Learning; unsuccessfulness, behavior, learning skills.