Abstract
The reviewed paper, ‘The creation of a confidence scale: the confidence in managing challenging situations scale’, focused on the self-efficacy of student nurses. The researchers who developed this scale recognised the need to assess a nursing student’s confidence or self-efficacy as part of their educational experience. They appropriately characterised confidence or self-efficacy as a developmental process not a personality trait. Equally as important, the researchers understood that self-efficacy is situation specific and must be assessed in the context that is pertinent to the nursing student’s performance in the clinical setting. The importance of embracing the concept of confidence or self-efficacy as an antecedent to overall performance in nursing students and in nursing practice in general cannot be underestimated (Bandura, 2004).
Self-efficacy is described as the perceived ability to manage one’s personal performance or response in the face of environmental demands or stressful situations. It is a multidisciplinary concept found in the literature of many psychosocial disciplines. It is most often associated with the work of Albert Bandura (a psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University, California, United States) and his sociocognitive theory of learning. Bandura states that people are mainly motivated by the way they perceive the world, not by the way things really are. Bandura defines perceived self-efficacy as a determinant or mechanism, which translates knowledge into action. In other words, theoretically, self-efficacy is a predictor of successful behavioral performance (Bandura, 2004).
In Bandura’s paradigm – perceived self-efficacy is a learned behaviour that can be influenced and cultivated over time. Cultivating self-efficiacy in individuals is achieved by organising learning into manageable components and positively reinforcing an individual’s achievement in mastering these tasks or learning elements. Applying these principles in an educational or practice setting creates a framework for increasing the probability of successful individual achievement, and as such improved patient care delivery (Bandura, 2004).
Finally, but equally as significant, fostering self-efficacy of nursing students in a particular clinical situation leads to improved coping and resilience in that setting. While self-efficacy leads to successful performance, successful performance reinforces a mental model of self-efficacy within an individual, resulting in resilience and effective coping. The ability for a nursing student or practising nurse to respond effectively in challenging situations is dependent on the ultimate development of situational-specific self-efficacy in the clinical setting (Bandura, 2004).
The researchers in this study focused on an important concept for student nurses. They reminded us of the need for self-efficacy as part of the development of the student nurse when they face challenging clinical situations. They also reminded us of the need for the development of self-efficacy for all nurses to ensure effective clinical care delivery and resilience.