Academic performance in higher education: The role of self-efficacy, goal setting and blended learning

Abstract

Past studies have acknowledged that individual students’ psychological factors significantly influence academic performance positively, thus making more supportive attitudes and behaviours of the students. Despite a wide range of research on self-efficacy, goal setting, and performance in education, only limited attention has been given to explore the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. To fill this loophole, the present research connects the existing studies by showing the academic performance as a result of psychological and contextual factors and conceptually discusses the potential moderating variable of blended learning. Hence, the current paper is designed with a primary goal of putting forward propositions regarding the moderating effect of blended learning on the relationships between self-efficacy, goal-setting and academic performance. The Social Cognitive Theory is adopted as the theoretical foundation for discussing the relationships among the variables.