Psychological Reporls, 2003,92,745-754. O Psychological Reports 2003 RELATIONS AMONG PERCENED SELF-EFFICACY, SELF-ESTEEM, AND SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT ' ANTONELLA D'AMICO AND MAUIUZIO CARDACI Dzparfimento di Psicologia-Sezzone Snenza Cogni~iva Via delle Scienze Summary.-The present research explored empirically the factorial dimensions of self-efficacy and self-esteem and asscciations among self-esteem, sell-efficacy, and scho- lastic achievement as measured in 151 subjects (M age= 13.4 yr.). Five factors emerged from factorial analysis: two factors reflected the self-esteem feelings (and were, respec- tively, named as s&-referential self-esteem and comparative self-esteem). The remain- ing three factors reflected che sell-efficacy beliefs in the three different scholastic do- -mains considered, linguistic-literary, logical-mathematical, and technical-practical. All self-eff~cacy scores were signihcantly correlated with scholastic achievement while no associacions between self-esteem scores and scholastic performance were found. Never- theless, selt-eFficacy and selt-esteem dimensions shared some common aspects. In par- ticular, each dfierent self-esteem factor showed different magnitudes of association with domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs. At present, a lot of psychological research is devoted to exploring self- esteem and self-efficacy constructs. One problem in this research area is that these two constructs frequently overlap (see Bong & Clark, 2000, for a re- view). Perceived self-efficacy was defined by Bandura (1997) as "beliefs in one's capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." Self-efficacy beliefs and judgments are con- cerned with individuals' perceived capabilities to attain designated types of performance (academic, personal, and career development). Major problems emerge in the definition of self-esteem: several authors give definitions that, in some cases, seem to be quite different from each other. Accordmg to James (1890), self-esteem results from the relationship between expectancies and outcomes. Coopersmith (1967) affirmed that self-esteem is the outcome of a series of self-evaluations that individuals form in ddferent areas of expe- rience. Shavelson, Hubner, and Stanton (1976) defined self-esteem as "a per- son's perception of himself." Harter (1986) considered self-esteem as the out- come both of social support and of perceived comperence in domains view- ed as relevant by indviduals. In such approaches, self-esteem seems to be nothing but a generalised form of self-efficacy (Pajares, 1997). The distinction between self-esteem and self-efficacy was indeed a "hot point" for Pajares in an unpublished lecture given at Emory University in 'For correspondence, please contact Antonella D'Amico, Dipartimento di Psicologia, Via delle Scienze, Parco d'orleans, Palermo, Italy or e-mail (adamico@unipa.it).