Self-efficacy beliefs influencing Pasifika students’ achievement in science

Achievement of Pasifika students in science at secondary school has been an enduring problem for many decades in New Zealand, where they occupy the bottom rung of the national achievement ladder. This exploratory study set out to investigate how Pasifika students’ self-efficacy may influence their achievement in Year 11 science. Using a qualitative approach this interpretive research, studied Year 11 science students to understand the dynamics between classroom interactions, their self-efficacy and achievement. Self-efficacy being an inner willpower to attempt or not to attempt at achieving a certain goal. The study adapted Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT model) to the New Zealand context as the theoretical frame. The study explored evidence of the four antecedents of self-efficacy: Mastery, Vicarious Experience, Verbal Persuasion, and Physiological and Emotional arousal. School science is taught within the constructivist science curriculum in New Zealand.

The Kakala Research Framework was applied as the methodological guide for data collection. Three schools accepted the invitation to participate in the research and offered a purposive sample of Pasifika students and their science teachers who agreed to participate. Data were collected through classroom observations; student questionnaire; focus group interviews; and teacher interviews. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Level One science results were then interpreted alongside the identified self-efficacy antecedents.

Mastery was the self-efficacy antecedent most strongly associated with achievement. Students with high Verbal Persuasion and Vicarious Experience as primary or secondary sources of self-efficacy also achieved all the credits they attempted. Verbal Persuasion was an important source of self-efficacy commonly identified by students, who saw teachers as providing this form of support. Generally, student who indicated high levels across the self-efficacy antecedents displayed high levels of achievement, although some indicating high overall self-efficacy in this way did not achieve all their credits due to high Physiological and Emotional needs.

Teachers identified literacy as a problem for Pasifika students in achieving well in science; however, there was no evidence of any attempt to build the students’ understanding of scientific vocabulary or comprehension of scientific text. The common themes identified by students were a fear of failing and disappointing their parents. Students expressed the need for science content to be explained and clarified to help them understand the science ideas underpinning the assessed practical work.

Findings of concern were; the narrow curriculum experienced by the Pasifika students in this study; teaching approaches that chunked the content into small disconnected bits; and providing guidance on what needed to be written to achieve the credits without developing the necessary understanding. Consequently, the learning purpose was reduced to achieving NCEA credits. The unintended result of this narrow curriculum has implications for what science content and procedures these Pasifika students know and can apply. This highlights that student have insufficient content knowledge and understanding to progress to the next level in science education. The internal assessment only in some of these classes reduced the future science learning opportunities for these Pasifika students.

This research extends the Kakala research framework for Pasifika education by introducing the centrality of the Fau fibre, which is weak and yet critical to the formation of a strong and attractive lei. It also suggests the inclusion of Hounga’ia as a step between Mālie and Māfana.