International Journal of Applied Psychology 2014, 4(3): 108-120 DOI: 10.5923/j.ijap.20140403.05 Interrelations between Self-esteem and Personal Self-efficacy in Educational Contexts: An Empirical Study Huy P. Phan * , Bing H. Ngu School of Education, The University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia Abstract The present investigation extends previous studies, situating self-esteem within Bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory. Our theoretical-conceptual model posits the impacts of the four major informational sources (e.g., enactive learning experience) on self-esteem; this postulation would, in part, advance our understanding into the nature of self-esteem. Furthermore, self-esteem is hypothesized to relate positively to the three levels of personal self-efficacy beliefs: global, course, and task. Academic engagement and achievement outcome, in turn, are postulated as adaptive outcomes of both self-esteem and self-efficacy. 350 12 th grade students (200 girls, 152 boys) participated in this correlational study, and responded to a suite of Likert-scale inventories. We used causal modeling procedures to ascertain and decompose the direct and indirect effects. Some notable findings were established, which formulate a consideration for further advancement – for example, the direct influences from three of the four sources on self-esteem, and the impact of self-esteem on global self-efficacy. Keywords Academic engagement, Personal self-efficacy, Informational sources, Self-esteem, Secondary school learning 1. Introduction The enhancement of quality learning is an important area of inquiry for consideration. Why do some individuals succeed, academically, despite their modest capabilities in classroom settings, and others do not? What motivational factors would contribute to individuals’ proactive engagement in schooling? How do we negate the potential detrimental consequences that could arise from low academic performances? These questions assist educators and policymakers in their articulations of educational-social programs that could promote and cultivate long-term well-being. Different theoretical orientations conceptualized over the past five decades have been explored and tested, involving individuals in different educational contexts. Perceived self-efficacy [1, 2] introduced in the late 1970s, for example, has been incorporated into different conceptualizations, and studied in academic and non-academic contexts, encompassing different educational levels [3-5]. Personal self-efficacy features prominently in human agency, and makes direct and indirect contributions to the prediction of learning in achievement contexts [e.g., 6, 7-9]. Another noncognitive construct that has featured prominently is one’s personal self-esteem [10, 11]. One’s own sense of self-worth (e.g., I am a good person), similar to * Corresponding author: hphan2@une.edu.au (Huy P. Phan) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ijap Copyright © 2014 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved self-judgments of perceived competence, is an important self construct that serves to enhance and predict achievement-related outcomes and adaptive practices. Both self-esteem and self-efficacy, in this case, form part of the wider self-system that also includes self-concept [12-14]. The relevance of self-esteem in educational contexts has been acknowledged by a number of researchers [15-17]. To what extent do self-esteem and self-efficacy differ, characteristically, and how do these two self constructs relate and function to influence student learning? In the context of the present study, we choose to situate self-esteem within the framework of social cognition [2, 18], including its impact on personal self-efficacy, structured at different levels of specificity, and academic engagement and achievement outcome. Notably, differing from previous research investigations, the theoretical-conceptual model that we have developed for the present study incorporates an examination of the influences of different informational sources on both self-esteem and personal self-efficacy. This avenue of inquiry, especially in relation to the formation of self-efficacy [e.g., 19, 20-22] is theoretically insightful, and may yield fruitful information regarding the nature and characteristics of both self constructs. Does an individual’s enactive learning experience (e.g., repeated successes) help to heighten his/her self-esteem? Does self-esteem make a meaningful contribution to the overall variances of the different levels of self-efficacy? These research questions, in totality, form the basis for our theoretical-conceptualization, detailed in Figure 1.