Technological self-efficacy (TSE) is "the belief in one's ability to successfully perform a technologically sophisticated new task".McDonald, T., & Siegall, M. (1992). The effects of technological self-efficacy and job focus on job performance, attitudes, and withdrawal behaviors. The Journal of Psychology, 126, 465-475. TSE does not highlight specific technological tasks; instead it is purposely vague. This is a specific application of the broader and more general construct of self-efficacy, which is defined as the belief in one's ability to engage in specific actions that result in desired outcomes.Bandura, A. (1997). Self efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Self efficacy does not focus on the skills one has, but rather the judgments of what one can do with his or her skills. Traditionally, a distinguishing feature of self efficacy is its domain-specificity. In other words, judgments are limited to certain types of performances as compared to an overall evaluation of his or her potential. Typically, these constructs refer to specific types of technology; for example, computer self-efficacy,Compeau, D. R., & Higgins, C. A. (1995). Computer self-efficacy: Development of a measure and initial test. Management Information System Quarterly, 19, 189-211. or internet self-efficacyJoo, Y-J, Bong, M., & Choi, H-J (2000). Self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, academic self-efficacy, and internet self-efficacy in web-based instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48, 5-17. and information technology self-efficacy.Staples, D. S., Hulland, J. S., & Higgins, C. A. (1999). A self-efficacy theory explanation for the management of remote workers in virtual organizations. Organization Science, 10, 758-776. In order to organize this literature, technology specific self-efficacies (e.g., computer and internet) that technology specific self-efficacies can be considered sub-dimensions under the larger construct of technological self-efficacy.
Origins This construct was intended to describe general feelings toward the ability to adopt new technology and is therefore generalizable across a number of specific technologies. Furthermore, this construct can account for and be applied to technologies that have yet to be invented. Although these features have allowed TSE to remain relevant through the times, this definitional breadth has also created confusion and a proliferation of related constructs.
Importance 21st-century society is completely embedded within a technological context, which makes the understanding and evaluation of technological self efficacy critical. Indeed, nearly half of Americans own smartphones and this trend towards technology use is not limited to the United States; instead cell phone, computer, and internet use is becoming increasingly common around the world. Technology is particularly prevalent in the workplace and learning environments. At work, 62% of employed Americans use the internet and email, but workplace internet users either use the internet everyday (60%) or not at all (28%).Madden, M., & Jones, S. (2008, September 24). Networked workers. (PDF) Internet and email use is obviously influenced by work duties, but 96% of employed Americans use some sort of new communication technology on the job. Successful investment in technology is associated with enhanced productivity; however, full realization of technological potential commonly plagues organizations.Johansen, R., Swigart, R. (1996). Upsizing the Individual in the Downsized Organization: Managing in the Wake of Reengineering, Globalization and Overwhelming Technological Change. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. In learning environments, college courses are more frequently being offered online. This is commonly referred to as distance education and implementation ranges from courses being supported by the web (teaching occurs predominantly through face-to-face instructor interactions with supplemental materials being offered on the web) to blended learning (significantly less face-to-face instructor interactions and more online instruction) to fully online (all instruction is conducted virtually with no face-to-face instructor interactions). A number of advantages are associated with distance learning such as increased flexibility and convenience, which allows individuals the opportunity to enroll in classes that would otherwise be off-limits due to geographical or personal reasons.Phipps, R., & Merisotis, J. (1999). What's the difference? A review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education. Washington, DC: Institute for Higher Education Policy. Another commonly cited advantage is that instruction is self paced, which allows for personalized tailoring based on individual needs.Vrasidas, C., & McIsaac, M. S. (2000). Principles of pedagogy and evaluation for web-based learning. Educational Media International, 37, 105-112. However, these advantages are not likely to be realized if the individual is anxious about the method of instructional delivery and/or his or her expectation of success is low due to its technological component. Taken together, these two critical arenas discussed above (workplace and learning) reinforce the extent to which technology has impacted modern activities and consequently the importance of perceived beliefs in one's ability to master new technology. Success in everyday life often hinges on the utilization of technology and by definition, new technology will always be new. Therefore, this construct warrants review.
Furthermore, studies have shown that technological self-efficacy is a crucial factor for teaching computer programming to school students, as students with higher levels of technological self-efficacy achieve higher learning outcomes. In this case, the effect of technical self-efficacy is even stronger than the effect of gender.Brauner, P., Leonhardt, T., Ziefle, M., & Schroeder, U. (2010): The effect of tangible artifacts, gender and subjective technical competence on teaching programming to seventh graders. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools (ISSEP 2010), LNCS 5941. pp. 61–71.
Differentiation from other forms of self-efficacy Since TSE stems from the same theory as general self-efficacy and other task-specific self-efficacy, the differentiation of this construct from these other forms of self-efficacy is crucial. Unfortunately, previous studies focusing in on TSE have not shown the uniqueness of TSE measures. Despite the dearth of differentiating research on TSE, the uniqueness of this construct can be shown by considering closely related and technology specific self-efficacies (i.e. computer self-efficacy), which has been established as a unique construct. When compared to general self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy has been shown to be unique based on two measures of general self-efficacy.Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4, 62-83. In this same study, the authors showed computer self-efficacy was not related to many types of specific self-efficacy including art, persuasion, and science self-efficacy. One of the most related types of specific self-efficacy was mechanical. This makes sense given both types of specific self-efficacies are related to using tools albeit one being technology the other being more physical in nature. Computer self-efficacy has a domain has also been shown to be related, but distinct, to self-efficacy about computer programs.Agarwal, R., Sambamurthey, V., & Stair, R. M. (2000). Research Report: The evolving relationship between general and specific computer self-efficacy-An empirical assessment. Information Systems Research, 4, 418-430
Measurement Following the definition set forth by Bandura, self-efficacy is an individual's belief and confidence in him or herself. This property has important implications for the measurement of any type of self-efficacy. Specifically, measures of self-efficacy must be self-report because the only person who can accurately portray beliefs in one's ability is the target of investigation. In other words, self-report measures of self-efficacy have definitional truth. While a number of problems exist with self-report inventories, in the case of self-efficacy (and other constructs that are defined as internal beliefs and cognitions) this measurement approach is unavoidable.
While the type of measurement approach is defined by the construct, the process of developing and validating these scales has varied considerably throughout the TSE literature. One major difference between measures concerns the scoring of the items. Previously, research has noted differences in results can be partially attributed to different scoring approaches.Lee, C., & Bobko, P. (1994). Self-efficacy beliefs: Comparison of five measures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 364-369 Specifically, there are two main ways of scoring self-efficacy items. The first type is called self-efficacy magnitude. Items are worded so participants would respond whether or not they felt they could accomplish a certain task (yes or no). The second type is self-efficacy strength. This scoring approach asks participants to rate how confident they are in completing the task(s) on a numerical scale and then averages across all items. All other scoring types are simply composites of these first two approaches.
Another difference between TSE measures concerns the issue of generality. This consideration is similar to the previous differentiation between-TSE as a broader concept and technology specific self-efficacy. Measurement attempts of the broader concept of technological self-efficacy will be considered first. McDonald and Siegall developed a five-item likert scale of technological self-efficacy based on the consideration of previous theoretical studies. This scale was scored using the strength approach to self-efficacy scales. Items in this scale were not referring to specific technologies, but instead focused on technology as a general concept. Using a development process, Holcomb, King and Brown, also proposed a scale to measure TSE Holcomb, L. B., King, F. B., & Brown, S. W. (2004). Student traits and attributes contributing to the success in online courses: Evaluation of university online courses. The Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 2, 1-17. Factor analysis revealed three distinct factors containing 19 likert-type items, which also was scored according to the strength scoring system. In contrast to the McDonald and Siegall scale, the items in this scale referenced certain technologies (specifically computers and software packages). The two studies mentioned above represent of attempts to measure TSE as a broader concept.