Hope, Optimism and Self-Efficacy: A System of Competence and Control Enhancing African American College Students Academic Well-Being

Abstract

Competence and control beliefs are central constructs in understanding student motivation. However, most research has examined competence and control beliefs in isolation from each other, and little is known about how these beliefs function as a system in relationship to one another. Using Huberty’s (2003) recommendation, multiple correlation analyses were used to examine the relationship of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and pessimism, as a cognitive set of competence and control beliefs, to the academic well-being of African-American college students at a historically black university in the Southeastern United States. Results suggest that the cognitive set was significantly related to multiple measures of academic well-being including increased academic achievement, positive emotion, adaptive coping strategies and life satisfaction, and decreased negative emotion and maladaptive coping strategies. Although the cognitive set was predictive of measures of academic well-being, the individual measures of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and pessimism predicted different aspects of academic well-being.