By James E Maddux and Evan Kleiman, George Mason University. The term “self-efficacy” refers to your beliefs about your ability to effectively perform the tasks needed to attain a valued goal. Self-efficacy does not refer to your abilities but to how strongly you believe you can use your abilities to work toward goals. Self-efficacy is not a unitary construct or trait; rather, people have self-efficacy beliefs in different domains, such as academic self-efficacy, problem-solving self-efficacy, and self-regulatory self-efficacy. Stronger self-efficacy beliefs are associated with positive outcomes, such as better grades, greater athletic performance, happier romantic relationships, and a healthier lifestyle.

This module on learning introduces classical and operant conditioning and social/observational learning and is appropriate for an undergraduate psychology course, either as a first introduction to the topic or as a refresher for more advanced courses.It includes a brief overview of the topic, module level objectives, readings (online free textbook and a website), links to YouTube videos explaining the three major learning theories, a low-stakes quiz sample, one required discussion, an optional discussion, and a choice of three different assignments.Links are active at time of upload, but that may change, of course.