Method
Participants and Procedures
Participants were 319 students (155 boys, 164 girls) in grades 5–8 in a public middle school in
a small midwestern city. The socioeconomic status of the area served by the school was largely
middle class, and the students were primarily White. The school was selected because the science
program is a hands-on program that has resulted in student science achievement that is higher than
in other schools in the district and state. Instruments were group administered by the first author
SCIENCE SELF-EFFICACY 489and two research assistants in individual science classes near the end of the last grading period of
the academic year. Teachers provided students’ grade point average (GPA) in science class.
Written permission to gather data was provided by the students’ parents and by the school
administration. Procedures were similar to those used by self-efficacy researchers (see, e.g.,
Pajares et al., 2000; Pajares, Miller, & Johnson, 1999; Shell et al., 1995)