Self-Efficacy Explained
At Osca we’ve been thinking a lot about self-efficacy, but what does it mean and how is it useful? We’ve given a very, very brief introduction to our current thinking below.
What is self-efficacy?
The phrase was coined by Stanford Professor Albert Bandura in the 60s. He defined self-efficacy as one’s belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.
The self-efficacy field of research
Today, self-efficacy is the primary way of measuring the extent people believe they can create change. Self-efficacy research is still active today across fields as diverse as organisational design, exercise and parenting. Vast quantities of research have been undertaken about how to create the support – or “scaffolding” – for people to have self-efficacy for any given activity. Despite this, self-efficacy theory and practice has failed to have a significant influence on public service design thinking outside health.
The emergence of the ‘self-efficacy practices’
The vast majority of projects and methods that create self-efficacy have been developed without any knowledge of formal self-efficacy theory. They have been developed because they work in practice. There is therefore a growing collection of theories and practices being used to create the new breed of people powered services (PPS). At Osca we call these the ‘self-efficacy practices’. We group these practices under the following headings:
Locus of authority: transactional analysis, public participation
Operating context: assemblage theory, systems thinking
Self-efficacy support: scaffolding theory, motivational theory
Service quality: impact measurement, design thinking
Organisational design: network theory, distributed leadership
User control: self-efficacy, empowerment.
Examples & opportunities for self-efficacy based PPS
We have identified two primary applications of self-efficacy for the improvement of public services:
- Enable individuals to directly take more control of their lives – for example their health or job prospects.
- Create organisations that give their staff radical levels of autonomy to improve organisational effectiveness.
| Examples | |
| User Empowerment | Delivery Staff Empowerment |
| Groundswell (UK) health for the homeless | ESBZ School Berlin (Germany) schooling |
| Spice (UK) time-credits | Office of Chief Information Officer (USA) central government |
| Club Soda (UK) addiction support | Sheffield Microsystem Academy (UK) health |
| South Yorkshire Housing Association (UK) housing | West Suffolk Social Care (UK) social care |
| Community Catalysts (UK) social care | Medium (USA), social media |
| Self Management UK (UK) Self care in health | Matt Black Systems (UK) aeronautics |
| Smart Recovery (UK) addiction support | Zappos (USA) online retailer |
| Opportunities | |
| Public service challenge | Possible PPS Intervention |
| Long term unemployed | ‘Coaching for jobs centres’ creating efficacy in job seekers. |
| Youth unemployment | Mentoring and network creation to school, FE and HE leavers. |
| High dependency social care | Bespoke autonomy focussed care delivered by autonomous staff. |
| Low efficacy in secondary school | Early stage coaching and mentoring provision for students. |
| Squeezed public sector workforce | Practical set of principles for any public service organisation. |
| Low dependency social service users | Goal setting and problem solving for low dependency users. |
For details about Osca’s work in this area, see our blog on why we’re focussing on self-efficacy in 2017.
