Differences in the longitudinal relationship between self-efficacy and interest across domains and student characteristics

Using a nationally representative longitudinal database of Korean students (N = 6908), we investigated the temporal relationships between self-efficacy and interest across Grades 7 through 11, and between the two constructs and Grade 12 achievement in math, English, and Korean. To extend previous findings, we focused on the potential moderation of these relationships by individual differences such as gender and perceptions of domain importance. Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling revealed significant reciprocal relationships between self-efficacy and interest in all three subjects, with interest being a stronger predictor of self-efficacy than vice versa in math and Korean. In English, self-efficacy and interest were equally predictive of each other. However, boys in English and students who considered the domain unimportant in math did not follow this general pattern in the respective domain. These findings underscore the necessity to approach student motivation based on the subject matter and individual student characteristics.

Educational relevance and implications

Academic self-efficacy and interest are among the most important motivation constructs that influence various decisions students make at school, including their task choice, effort expenditure, persistence, strategy use, and achievement. Although it would be ideal that self-efficacy and interest in the subject are developed concurrently, educators and researchers alike have debated which of the two should receive the limited educational resources first. The present results based on a nationally representative sample of Korean adolescents surveyed annually over 5 years show that the answer to this question depends on the subject matter and student characteristics. In math and Korean, feeling interested in the subject better predicted how self-efficacious in the subject students would later become than vice versa, although prior self-efficacy and interest in math were equally predictive of each other among students who did not perceive math to be as important. In English as a foreign language, the prior self-efficacy and interest in the subject were equally predictive of each other in general, which was not applied to boys as their prior interest in English better predicted their subsequent self-efficacy in learning the foreign language than their prior self-efficacy in English predicted their subsequent interest in the subject. Attending to these differences will help design instructional activities that bring greater motivational benefits to learners.