LEAIND-00670; No of Pages 5

Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2012) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

Short Report (Original Research)

Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem
Antonio Zufan a,, Guido Alessandri b, Maria Gerbino b, Bernadette Paula Luengo Kanacri a, Laura Di Giunta a, Michela Milioni a, Gian Vittorio Caprara b
a b

Interuniversity Center for Research on the Genesis and Development of Prosocial and Antisocial Motivations (CIRMPA), Sapienza University of Rome, Italy Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The present study examined the contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning (SESRL) in predicting academic achievement at the end of junior high school above and beyond the effects of previous academic achievement, gender, socioeconomic status, intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem. Participants included 170 (87 females) eighth grade students (Mage = 13.47) in a junior high school located in a small town near Rome (Italy). All measures were administered at the beginning of eighth grade. Hierarchical regression analysis supported the unique contribution of SESRL on academic achievement at the end of the school year. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 14 December 2011 Received in revised form 16 June 2012 Accepted 15 July 2012 Available online xxxx Keywords: Academic achievement Intelligence Personality traits Self-esteem Self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning

1. Introduction Academic success exerts a prominent inuence on adolescents' life students as a major indicator of psychological adjustment (Cole, Martin, Peeke, Seroczynski, & Fier, 1999; Crystal et al., 1994) and a source of rewards and satisfaction (Salmela-Aro & Tynkkynen, 2010). As a consequence, particular interest in investigating the early and major psychological predictors of adolescent's success at school is easily understandable. In particular, it is important for educators to identify student characteristics that can be modied in school practice to promote better academic performance. To this aim, social cognitive theorists have stressed the role of Self-Efcacy Beliefs in Self-Regulated Learning (SESRL) as predictors of academic performance (e.g., Caprara, Vecchione, Alessandri, Gerbino, & Barbaranelli, 2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2004). The scope of the present study is to examine the unique contribution of SESRL on academic achievement over and beyond the role of other individual predictors such as intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem. 1.1. Individual predictors of academic achievement Intelligence has consistently been demonstrated to predict academic achievement (Gagn & St Pre, 2002; Laidra, Pullman, & Allik, 2007), even after controlling for gender, prior academic achievement,
Corresponding author at: CIRMPA, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy. Tel.: +39 0649917665; fax: +39 064469115. E-mail address: antonio.zufano@uniroma1.it (A. Zufan). 1041-6080/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

and personality (Di Fabio & Busoni, 2007; Leeson, Ciarrochi, & Heaven, 2008). Within the Big-Five Personality model (i.e., openness/intellect, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism/ emotional instability), a comprehensive taxonomy of individual differences in personality (McCrae & Costa, 1999), conscientiousness and openness has been shown to be strongly associated with academic achievement (Caprara et al., 2011; Poropat, 2009). It is likely that conscientious adolescents perform better at school because of their ability to make plans, to regulate their behavior in accordance to their purposes, to make the effort that is needed to learn, and to demonstrate persistence. Likewise, adolescents open to experiences may be more apt to learn because they appreciate knowledge and discovery (Caprara et al., 2011). In comparison, agreeableness, emotional instability, and extraversion have not shown consistent signicant associations with academic success as do openness and conscientiousness (e.g., Duff, Boyle, Dunleavy, & Ferguson, 2004; Laidra et al., 2007; Poropat, 2009). Yet, in the present work, we prefer to include all of the Big-Five traits in order to offer a compelling picture of the links between personality and academic achievement. In addition, self-esteem (i.e., how people judge themselves as worthy of value) has also been associated with academic achievement (Baumeister, Campbell, Kruegger, & Vohs, 2003), mainly as a motivational factor (i.e., students try to excel at school in order to maintain a general positive image of their self). Social cognitive theorists have emphasized the pervasive role that SESRL exerts on adolescents' academic motivation and achievement (e.g., Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996, 2001; Caprara et al., 2008,

Please cite this article as: Zufan, A., et al., Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, Learning and Individual Differences (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

A. Zufan et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2012) xxxxxx

2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2004). In managing their own learning, self-efcacious students are condent in their capacity to meet school requirements, dutifully plan and organize their academic activities, perceive difculties as challenges, do not get discouraged by setbacks, persist in their efforts when needed to accomplish school tasks, select peers who share their same interest in achievement, and contribute to creating conditions that foster learning (Caprara et al., 2008). Although some studies have considered the combined inuence of intelligence and personality traits (Farsides & Woodeld, 2003; Laidra et al., 2007), of personality and SESRL (Caprara et al., 2011), and of self-esteem and SESRL (Lane, Lane, & Kyprianou, 2004), to our knowledge, no study has simultaneously addressed the contribution of all of these variables on academic achievement. Drawing on the work of several authors (e.g., Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004), we hypothesized that intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, and SESRL operate in concert to predict academic performance by favoring intellectual curiosity, knowledge acquisition (especially openness and intelligence), and motivational effort (especially conscientiousness, self-esteem, and SESRL). In conceiving human personality as a system entailing different levels of functioning (e.g., Caprara et al., 2011; McAdams, 1995), one may view intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem as individuals' basic potentials (Cattell, 1987; Kamakura, Jukoando, & Ono, 2001; Kendler, Gardner, & Prescott, 1998; Loehlin, McCrae, Costa, & John, 1998), and SESRL as the personal beliefs (mostly derived from experience) that enable people to turn their basic predispositions into proper behaviors conducive to academic success (Caprara et al., 2008). Following this reasoning, we conceptualized SESRL as operating at an intermediate level between basic predispositions and behavior (Caprara et al., 2011). Accordingly, we hypothesized that SESRL at the beginning of eighth grade (the last year of junior high school in Italy) may exert a unique role in predicting academic achievement at the end of the same school year above and beyond the role of intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem. In testing our hypotheses, we controlled previous academic achievement at the end of sixth grade (the rst year of junior high school in Italy) and socio-demographic variables such as gender and socioeconomic status (SES) which are typically associated with academic success (Lindberg, Hyde, Petersen, & Linn, 2010; Nowell & Hedges, 1998; Sirin, 2005). 2. Materials and method 2.1. Participants The participants were 170 young adolescents (87 females) who were part of a longitudinal project that started in 2008 with the primary goal of investigating the personal and social determinants of adolescents' adjustment. The participating students were drawn from one public junior high school in Genzano, a community located near Rome. Participants were beginning the eighth grade (Mage = 13.47) when data on traits, intelligence, self-esteem, and SESRL measures were collected. The majority of students were from intact families (93.4%), and only 7.6% were from single-parent homes (separated or divorced). Approximately 8% of parents held a professional or managerial rank; 26% were merchants or operators of other businesses; 26% were skilled workers; 38% were unskilled workers; and 2% were unemployed. The majority of parents had a high school degree (46.4%), whereas 23.7% had a university degree or beyond. Approximately 20.5% nished middle school and only 9.4% achieved an elementary or less than elementary school education. 2.2. Procedure We obtained approval for our longitudinal study from the school council, composed of parent and teacher representatives. A signed

consent form was subsequently obtained from parents for each student. All measures (except for academic achievement) were collected in the classrooms by well-trained researchers who clearly articulated the purpose and response choices of the questionnaires to students. 2.3. Measures Measures of intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, SESRL, and SES were collected at the beginning of eighth grade during the 20092010 school year. Academic achievement was obtained from school records at the end of sixth and eighth grades. SESRL. The SESRL scale (Bandura et al., 1996) includes 9 items ( = .85) scored on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 = cannot do at all to 5 = highly certain can do). Participants rated their beliefs in their perceived capability related to self-regulating learning activities, such as the capacity to plan and organize academic activities, the ability to structure environments conducive to learning, and self-motivation for academic work (e.g., How well can you study when there are other interesting things to do?). 2.3.1. Intelligence We utilized the Italian version of the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test, a nonverbal measure aimed at measuring individuals' analytic and reasoning ability (i.e., uid intelligence), for children from 8 to 13 years old (Cattel & Cattel, 1987). This instrument comprises two parallel forms (form A and B), each consists of four subtests: series, analogies, matrices, and classication. For our purposes, we considered the mean of forms A and B as a measure of intelligence. The SpearmanBrown split-half coefcient of reliability was .77. 2.3.2. Personality traits Participants rated their personality traits on 30 items (6 items for each trait) in a reduced version of the Big-Five QuestionnaireChildren (BFQ-C; Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003). The psychometric properties of the BFQ-C have been rmly established in several samples of Italian adolescents in junior high schools (Barbaranelli, Fida, Paciello, Di Giunta, & Caprara, 2008). Participants rated the frequency of the behavior noted in the item using a 5-point Likert scale (1= almost never to 5 = almost always). The openness scale ( =.83) included items related to self-reported intellectual attitudes, especially in the school domain (e.g., I easily learn what I study at school). The conscientiousness scale ( = .74) assessed the orderliness, precision and the fullling of commitments (e.g., I only play when I'm nished my homework). The extraversion scale ( = .72) assessed characteristics such as activity, enthusiasm, and self-condence (e.g., I like to joke). The agreeableness scale ( = .71) assessed concern and sensitivity toward others (e.g., I trust in others). The emotional instability scale ( = .84) included items assessing feelings of anxiety, depression, and anger (e.g., I easily get angry). 2.3.3. Self-esteem We used the 10-item Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale ( = .78), which measures the extent to which participants feel they possess good qualities and have achieved personal success (e.g., I feel that I have a number of good qualities). Each item is scored on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. 2.3.4. Academic achievement Children's achievement was collected at two time points: at the end of sixth and eighth grades through the use of original school records. In the Italian school system, teachers evaluate their students by using a ten-level gradation for each subject (from 1 = extremely insufcient to 10 = excellent). We created a composite measure of academic achievement from grades obtained in the primary school subjects: Italian, math, science, foreign language (English and French), and social studies.

Please cite this article as: Zufan, A., et al., Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, Learning and Individual Differences (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

A. Zufan et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2012) xxxxxx

2.3.5. SES SES was dened using the information reported by the students concerning their parents' occupation and education. We consider this variable as the factor score from a conrmatory factorial analysis in which SES was a single dimension dened by parents' education and occupation (Caprara et al., 2011). We used the weighted least square minimum variance function of Mplus 5.1 (Muthn & Muthn, 2006), particularly recommended for non normal or categorical data (Flora & Curran, 2004), as the method of estimation. 2.4. Analytical approach Initially, we examined the pattern of missing values of the variables considered in our study. Then, we computed the zero-order correlations among all the variables.1 This was followed by a hierarchical regression analysis involving the role of intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, and SESRL as predictors of academic achievement in the eighth grade. In an effort to control for the impact of previous academic achievement, gender, and SES, these variables were entered in the rst step of the regression. The second step included intelligence, personality traits and self-esteem, while the third step included SESRL. 3. Results 3.1. Preliminary analyses Only one student was missing data on academic achievement, whereas some participants had missing values for the other variables considered in this study. The data met the assumption for missing completely at random (MCAR): Little (1988) test was not signicant 2(85) = 88.548, p = .375, namely, the missingness on one variable is unrelated to the other measured or unmeasured variables. In order to not reduce the number of subjects in the analyses, we computed the maximum-likelihood estimates of missing data via the expectation maximization algorithm using SPSS 18 (Enders, 2010). Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations among the variables. Prior and later academic achievements were strongly correlated; self-esteem was uncorrelated with academic achievement at both sixth and eighth grades. Gender, SES, conscientiousness, openness, and SESRL were all signicantly correlated with later academic achievement. 3.2. Regression analysis Table 2 outlines the results of the hierarchical regression analysis. At the rst step, only academic achievement at sixth grade signicantly predicted later academic achievement. The addition of intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem in the regression equation signicantly improved the variance explained. However, only intelligence, openness, and extraversion demonstrated signicant regression coefcients. The subsequent addition of SESRL signicantly contributed to the explained variance. Accordingly, SESRL predicted academic achievement at eighth grade, controlling for the effects of all previous variables.2 The effects of intelligence, openness, and extraversion remained signicant. In this nal step, SESRL explained approximately 2% of the variance in academic achievement at eighth grade; previous academic achievement about 18%; intelligence, openness, and extraversion explained respectively about 1%, 2%, and 2% of the variance.
1 A conrmatory factorial analysis supported the separateness of the items of each construct examined in the present study. The results are available upon request to the rst author. 2 We also repeated the above analyses by considering each specic school subject one at a time. The contribution of SESRL was found to be statistically signicant (p b .05) in each instance.

4. Discussion The above ndings corroborate our hypothesis attesting to the unique contribution of SESRL to the prediction of later academic achievement above and beyond (1) previous academic achievement, (2) gender, (3) SES, (4) intelligence, (5) personality traits, and (6) self-esteem. Gender and SES did not predict academic achievement at eighth grade in any step of our analysis. The beliefs students hold about their capacities to regulate their learning, instead, resulted one of the most important predictor of success at school after previous academic achievement. This is in accordance with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997) and highlights the importance of previous academic achievement in founding the basis for mastery beliefs which, in turn, operate as feedback for the development of SESRL thereby further contributing to academic success. In addition, intelligence contributed to predicting academic achievement. This nding is in line with the results of previous studies suggesting the inuence of intellectual abilities in fostering students' transitions across increasingly difcult grades (e.g., Laidra et al., 2007). Openness predicted later academic achievement in accordance with recent results (Caprara et al., 2011) supporting the signicant impact of openness on academic achievement in earlier (eighth) rather than later (thirteenth) grades. Openness in earlier grades accounts for success at school above and beyond intelligence, as curiosity and interest in learning should provide motivation to learn over and above students' cognitive abilities. However, these same skills may be less inuential as compared to the more focused discipline that is required for learning in subsequent grades. Extraversion negatively and signicantly predicted academic achievement. This is consistent with studies reporting a negative association between extraversion and academic performance (Rolfhus & Ackerman, 1999) usually explained in terms of differences in time spent engaging in knowledge acquisition with extraverts spending more time socializing and introverts spending more time studying (Poropat, 2009). Surprisingly, conscientiousness did not account for later academic achievement as found in other research (Poropat, 2009). This result is likely related to the high stability of academic achievement in our study. According to the literature (Poropat, 2009), agreeableness and emotional instability did not predict academic achievement. General self-esteem did not exert any signicant inuence on later academic achievement. This result is not new (Baumeister et al., 2003), and may mostly depend on the specic conceptualization of self-esteem (Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004). Indeed, there are more specic manifestations of self-esteem, such as academic self-esteem (i.e., individuals' personal attribution of their own worth in the academic domain), that may be more effective predictors of academic performance (Pullmann & Allik, 2008; Valentine et al., 2004). Future studies should consider the predictive power of academic self-esteem jointly with SESRL. We believe that SESRL, in comparison to intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, may have more practical value in academic settings. Indeed, social cognitive theorists (Bandura, 1997) have shown how self-efcacy beliefs can be fostered and changed, principally through the mechanisms of mastery experiences and modeling. In this sense, several programs have already reported encouraging results about how self-regulation training for students can improve their academic performance (Randi & Corno, 2000; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2004). Conversely, less is known about the possibility of modifying intelligence and personality traits. Moreover, previous programs that have tried to improve academic performance through a change in self-esteem have demonstrated null or even counterproductive outcomes (Baumeister et al., 2003). 5. Conclusion Early learning on how to deal with increasingly challenging school demands on a daily basis may enable students to avoid experiencing

Please cite this article as: Zufan, A., et al., Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, Learning and Individual Differences (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

A. Zufan et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2012) xxxxxx

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations among gender, SES, intelligence, personality traits, self-esteem, SESRL, and academic achievement. Variables 1. Gender 2. SES 3. Intelligence 4. Openness 5. Conscientiousness 6. Extraversion 7. Agreeableness 8. Emotional instability 9. Self-esteem 10. SESRL 11. Academic achievement 6th 12. Academic achievement 8th Mean 30.19 3.51 3.41 4.26 3.39 2.69 3.09 3.69 7.53 7.09 SD 4.44 0.68 0.73 0.56 0.62 0.81 0.46 0.75 1.22 0.96 1 1 .007 .079 .148 .147 .111 .163 .041 .033 .267 .164 .158 2 1 .043 .149 .025 .018 .075 .024 .037 .079 .331 .272 1 .204 .161 .032 .023 .026 .050 .100 .267 .326 1 .420 .037 .281 .114 .237 .658 .442 .594 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

.217 .390 .250 .250 .661 .132 .223

1 .334 .143 .159 .162 .126 .012

1 .085 .039 .356 .098 .135

1 .319 .224 .106 .065

1 .191 .139 .114

1 .421 .545

1 .747 1

Note. Gender was code 0 = male; 1 = female. SD = standard deviation. p b .10. p b .05. p b .01. p b .001.

Table 2 Hierarchical regression with academic achievement at eighth grade as dependent variable. Variables Step 1 B Ac. achiev. 6th Gender SES Intelligence Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Em. instability Self-esteem SESRL R2 (.576) (.071) (.094) .731 .037 .029 p .000 .477 .537 Step 2 B (.446) (.027) (.103) (.027) (.409) (.107) ( .243) (.023) (.018) ( .072) .566 .014 .032 .124 .288 .081 .142 .015 .015 .035 p .000 .767 .504 .012 .000 .152 .004 .772 .757 .485 Step 3 B (.414) ( .019) (.139) (.024) (.297) ( .024) ( .254) (.013) (.036) ( .041) (.278) F(1, 158) = 8.215, .526 .010 .043 .113 .209 .019 .148 .008 .030 .020 .218 p = .005 .70 p .000 .834 .359 .020 .001 .777 .002 .871 .526 .685 .005

F(3, 166) = 70.429, p = .000 .56

F(7, 159) = 8.368, p = .000 .68

Note. Unstandardized (reported in parentheses) and standardized regression coefcients with their relative p-value.

school failures which, ultimately, may negatively affect life choices. This is very important in the Italian context, where the transition from junior (sixth to eighth) to senior high school (ninth to thirteenth) represents a delicate phase in which students, for the rst time, individually choose the academic path they will follow. In this process, the role played by teachers and parents as primary educational agents capable of helping adolescents in setting their goals and offering feedback when necessary is irreplaceable (Pajares, 2002). Building strong SESRL as early as possible allows students to use their self-regulated skills more automatically over subsequent school years and to take more control of their academic lives. In continuing efforts to increase our knowledge base in this important domain, it is important that future studies (1) replicate our results with non-western students, (2) consider the impact of SESRL at different school levels, (3) examine the unique role that SESRL plays when other important predictors of academic achievement, such as prosocial behavior (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2000), parental support (Cutrona, Cole, Colangelo, Assouline, & Russell, 1994), and teacherstudent relationship (Battistich, Schaps, & Wilson, 2004) are taken into account, and (4) integrate the analysis with more subject-specic SESRL measures in order to increase the predictive power of SESRL and to specify its role among different school-subjects.

Acknowledgments This study has been funded by the Italian Ministry of Health as part of a National Strategic Research Program (grant RFPS-2007-5-641730) on child and adolescent mental health. The authors thank Dr. Beatrice Bridglall, Dr. Richard Fabes, and Dr. Carol Martin for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References
Ackerman, P. L., & Heggestad, E. D. (1997). Intelligence, personality, and interests: evidence for overlapping traits. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 219245, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-2909.121.2.219. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efcacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (1996). Multifaceted impact of self efcacy beliefs on academic functioning. Child Development, 67, 12061222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01791.x. Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (2001). Self-efcacy beliefs as shapers of children's aspirations and career trajectories. Child Development, 72, 187206, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00273. Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., Rabasca, A., & Pastorelli, C. (2003). A questionnaire for measuring the Big Five in late childhood. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 645664, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00051-X. Barbaranelli, C., Fida, R., Paciello, M., Di Giunta, L., & Caprara, G. V. (2008). Assessing personality in early adolescence through self-report and other-ratings: A multitrait

Please cite this article as: Zufan, A., et al., Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, Learning and Individual Differences (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010

A. Zufan et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2012) xxxxxx multimethod analysis of the BFQ-C. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 876886, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.10.014. Battistich, V., Schaps, E., & Wilson, N. (2004). Effects of an elementary school intervention on students' connectedness to school and social adjustment during middle school. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 24, 243262, http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:JOPP. 0000018048.38517.cd. Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Kruegger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, 144, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1111/1529-1006.01431. Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Pastorelli, C., Bandura, A., & Zimbardo, P. (2000). Prosocial foundations of children's academic achievement. Psychological Science, 11, 302306, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00260. Caprara, G. V., Fida, R., Vecchione, M., Del Bove, G., Vecchio, G. M., Barbaranelli, C., et al. (2008). Longitudinal analysis of the role of perceived self-efcacy for self-regulated learning in academic continuance and achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 525534, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.100.3.525. Caprara, G. V., Vecchione, M., Alessandri, G., Gerbino, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2011). The contribution of personality traits and self-efcacy beliefs to academic achievement: A longitudinal study. British Journal of Educational Psychology , 81, 78 96, http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/2044-8279.002004. Cattel, R. B., & Cattel, A. K. S. (1987). Culture Fair. Firenze: Organizzazioni Speciali. Cattell, R. B. (1987). Intelligence: Its structure, growth, and action. New York: Elsevier Science. Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. (2004). A possible model to understand the personalityintelligence interface. British Journal of Psychology, 95, 249264, http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712604773952458. Cole, D. A., Martin, J. M., Peeke, L. A., Seroczynski, A. D., & Fier, J. (1999). Children's overand underestimation of academic competence: A longitudinal study of gender differences, depression and anxiety. Child Development, 70, 459473, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1111/1467-8624.00033. Crystal, D. S., Chen, C., Fuligni, A. J., Stevenson, H. W., Hau, C. C., Ko, H. J., et al. (1994). Psychological maladjustment and academic achievement: A cross-cultural study of Japanese, Chinese, and American high school students. Child Development, 65, 738753, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00780.x. Cutrona, C. E., Cole, V., Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. G., & Russell, D. W. (1994). Perceived parental social support and academic achievement: An attachment theory perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 369378, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1037/0022-3514.66.2.369. Di Fabio, A., & Busoni, L. (2007). Fluid intelligence, personality traits and scholastic success: Empirical evidence in a sample of Italian high school students. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 20952104, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.06.025. Duff, A., Boyle, E., Dunleavy, K., & Ferguson, J. (2004). The relationship between personality, approach to learning and academic achievement. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 19071920, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2003.08.020. Enders, C. K. (2010). Applied missing data analysis. New York: Guilford Press. Farsides, T., & Woodeld, R. (2003). Individual differences and undergraduate academic success: The roles of personality, intelligence and application. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 12251243, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(02) 00111-3. Flora, D. B., & Curran, P. J. (2004). An empirical evaluation of alternative methods of estimation for conrmatory factor analysis with ordinal data. Psychological Methods, 9, 466491, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1082-989x.9.4.466. Gagn, F., & St Pre, F. (2002). When IQ is controlled, does motivation still predict achievement? Intelligence, 30, 71100, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0160-2896(01) 00068-X. Kamakura, T., Jukoando, & Ono, Y. (2001). Genetic and environmental inuences on self-esteem in a Japanese twin sample. Twin Research, 4, 439442, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1375/1369052012768. Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C. O., & Prescott, C. A. (1998). A population-based twin study of self-esteem and gender. Psychological Medicine, 28, 14031409, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1017/S0033291798007508.

Laidra, K., Pullman, H., & Allik, J. (2007). Personality and intelligence as predictors of academic achievement: A cross-sectional study from elementary to secondary school. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 441451, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. paid.2006.08.001. Lane, J., Lane, A. M., & Kyprianou, A. (2004). Self-efcacy, self-esteem and their impact on academic performance. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 32, 247256 [Retrieved from , http://www.sbp-journal.com/index.php/sbp] Leeson, P., Ciarrochi, J., & Heaven, P. C. L. (2008). Cognitive ability, personality, and academic performance in adolescence. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 630635, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.07.006. Lindberg, S. M., Hyde, J. S., Petersen, J. L., & Linn, M. C. (2010). New trends in gender and mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 11231135, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0021276. Little, R. J. A. (1988). A test of missing completely at random for multivariate data with missing values. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 83, 11981202, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2290157. Loehlin, J. C., McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T. J., & John, O. P. (1998). Heritabilities of common and measure-specic components of the Big Five personality factors. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 431453, http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1998.2225. McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person? Journal of Personality, 63, 365396, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00500.x. McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1999). A ve-factor theory of personality. In L. Pervin, & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 139153). (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Muthn, L. K., & Muthn, B. O. (2006). Mplus: User's guide. Los Angeles, CA: Muthn & Muthn. Nowell, A., & Hedges, L. V. (1998). Trends in gender differences in academic achievement from 1960 to 1994: An analysis of differences in mean, variance, and extreme scores. Sex Roles, 39, 2143 (Retrieved from , http://www.eric.ed.gov/) Pajares, F. (2002). Gender and perceived self-efcacy in self-regulated learning. Theory into Practice, 41, 116125 [(Retrieved from , http://www.eric.ed.gov/)] Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the ve-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 322338, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ a0014996. Pullmann, H., & Allik, J. (2008). Relations of academic and general self-esteem to school achievement. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 559564, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.paid.2008.06.017. Randi, J., & Corno, L. (2000). Teacher innovations in the self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 651685). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Rolfhus, E., & Ackerman, P. (1999). Assessing individual differences in knowledge: Knowledge, intelligence, and related traits. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 511526, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.91.3.511. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Salmela-Aro, K., & Tynkkynen, L. (2010). Trajectories of life satisfaction across the transition to post-compulsory education: Do adolescents follow different pathways? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39, 870881, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964009-9464-2. Sirin, S. R. (2005). Socioeconomic status and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review of research. Review of Educational Research, 75, 417453, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.3102/00346543075003417. Valentine, J. C., DuBois, D., & Cooper, H. (2004). The relation between self-beliefs and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review. Educational Psychologist, 39, 111133, http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3902_3. Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (2004). Self-regulating intellectual processes and outcomes: A social cognitive perspective. In D. Y. Dai, & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development (pp. 143174). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Please cite this article as: Zufan, A., et al., Academic achievement: The unique contribution of self-efcacy beliefs in self-regulated learning beyond intelligence, personality traits, and self-esteem, Learning and Individual Differences (2012), doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.010