Change in Self-Efficacy as a Measure of Training Effectiveness at SquadronOfficer School

摘要

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of the US Air ForceSquadron Officer School (SOS) training curriculum by measuring students' self-efficacy before and after training. The authors verified through the literature that an individual's personal assessment of his self-efficacy was associated with task understanding and performance. Then self-efficacy questions were generated (for each of the four SOS curriculum areas) for an individual to assess his ability to perform a behavior related to a particular SOS learning objective. Demographic questions were also developed and combined with the self-efficacy questions to form pretest (before SOS training) and post-test (after SOS training) instruments. The instruments were administered to the January-March SOS class of over 600 Air Force captains. The authors verified the reliability of the instruments. Then they analyzed the differences in the means of the self-efficacy scores for each curriculum area to identify whether self-efficacy changed after having received training, and to identify whether different groups of individuals had significantly different pre-test or post-test scores. The results showed that students rated themselves higher in self-efficacy in all four curriculum areas after training. Furthermore, many groups which had a diverse spread of self-efficacy ratings before SOS completed SOS with similar ratings. The authors concluded the SOS training experience was associated with significant positive changes in self-efficacy and SOS brought individuals to similar self-efficacy levels. Learning, Organizations, Psychology, Self-Efficacy, SOS, Test construction, Training.