Developing Students’ Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation, and Self-Determination

By Dr. Galia Fussell

With the growth of online professional doctoral programs at Purdue University Global (PG), there is a pressing need to teach students advanced writing and research skills to prepare them for their doctoral courses and the complexities of current workplaces. The newly launched Doctoral Writing and Research course incorporates the theoretical constructs of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-determination to alleviate challenges doctoral students may face, lower the student attrition rate, and pave the way to a higher level of program completion.

Online enrollment in Purdue Global’s (PG) professional doctorate programs is increasing. The goal of these programs is to teach students to apply theoretical constructs and research to practical challenges related to their professional settings. Completion of a professional doctorate program provides substantive benefits to students, such as leadership roles, advancement in their careers, and, most importantly, evidence-based critical decision-making skills and improved professional standards in their fields. However, it is not an easy task; hence, educators need to identify the major challenges doctoral students face to help them identify their “selves” by developing self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-determination.

Doctoral students tend to overinflate or underestimate their writing and research self-efficacy. While addressing this issue, professors have an opportunity to implement the foundational constructs of Albert Bandura’s (1986) self-efficacy theory to increase students’ motivation, develop their resilience, and boost their beliefs in their efficacy. There is a correlation between learners’ academic self-efficacy and positive academic outcomes. Their sense of self-efficacy directly impacts their motivation, well-being, and accomplishments (Claxton & Dilon, 2022). So, by guiding learners in attuning their perceptions and developing writing and research skills, educators can maximize doctoral learners’ completion rates.

Conversely, students’ high levels of stress and anxiety may result in them dropping out of their programs. Approximately 50% of learners who start a doctoral program never finish their degrees (Council of Graduate Schools, 2020; Hill & Conceicao, 2020). The attrition rate for online doctoral programs may be even higher. Learners admit they are more challenged by the transition from their previous academic experiences to doctoral study than by the doctoral courses themselves. Getting a doctoral degree requires greater persistence and motivation (Sundt & Wheaton, 2021). Furthermore, fostering resilience in students will also help them to bounce back from adversity and cultivate positive emotions and perspectives in future challenging life circumstances (Bianco et al., 2024). This is exactly what the doctoral writing and research course does: it helps students overcome these adversities and prepares them for their upcoming courses, making subsequent courses more manageable. As evidenced by the students’ reflections on the course, there is a critical need in this course to develop students’ research and writing self-efficacy before they embark on their doctoral journey.

The doctoral writing and research course helps learners strengthen their academic ability to complete their doctoral program successfully. Nevertheless, their self-efficacy also relies on interactions between their behaviors (or thoughts) and their environments (Bandura, 1997). In fact, a productive academic environment contributes to the transformation of their thoughts and behaviors. The functions of Brightspace LMS have facilitated a course design that caters to students’ diverse learning styles. Students admit that weekly seminars and professors’ timely constructive feedback/feedforward on their assignments contribute to the improvement of their writing and research skills and provide guidance in structuring and composing sections of their research papers. Fatih Ari and his colleagues believe that “Faculty support alleviated students’ anxiety or lack of confidence about doing educational research” (2022, p. 704). Professors help students understand the course content, enrich their lexicons, and prepare them for scholarly conversations in their fields of study. Students have admitted their writing self-efficacy continues to improve in their other classes as well.

Another important skill doctoral students need to master is self-regulated learning (SRL). In his seminal work, Barry Zimmerman (2002) defines self-regulation as “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are oriented to attaining goals” (p. 62). The majority of doctoral students are adult learners and gainfully employed, and they have specific goals to achieve in this course and in their doctoral program. In this course, while students are diligently preparing themselves for their upcoming studies, some are “shaking off the cobwebs,” “knocking off the rust and loosen a few cobwebs,” and “dusting off and updating [their] bag of tricks” (Students’ Reflections, 2025), which indicates that no matter the level of readiness for their doctoral programs, all students need a course like this one to prepare them for their upcoming courses. Zimmerman (2002) further posits that students first need to learn about themselves before addressing their limitations. Likewise, professors also need to know students’ strengths and limitations and teach them to set expectations for themselves, self-evaluate their learning progress toward their goals, and self-reflect on their progress. Self-regulated students can direct their own learning processes by setting up learning objectives, using effective learning strategies that align with their learning styles, and adjusting their abilities to achieve their objectives.

The students who successfully master their self-regulated learning can transition to the next level—self-determined learning (heutagogy). Heutagogy was developed by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon in 2000. The heutagogical approach to this course is important because self-determined learning emphasizes the production of learners who are well prepared for their doctoral program and the intricacies of current workplaces. Self-determined learning integration into the course is dictated by the fact that the doctoral program requires independent research skills, critical thinking, and effective writing.   

In conclusion, the multiple skill sets that PG students bring to their doctoral programs contribute to their success in their studies. Nonetheless, students have a pressing need for a writing and research course that develops their advanced academic writing and research skills. Some students may be returning to an academic setting after a long gap; therefore, they also need help with “refreshing their writing and analytic skills, and with adapting to heavy reading expectations” (Brown, 2017, as cited in Sundt & Wheaton, 2021, p. 167). These developed abilities will boost learners’ motivation, confidence, resilience, writing self-efficacy, and research skills. The acquired knowledge and skills in this course will pave the way for a lower student attrition rate and a higher level of program completion. Knowledgeable and experienced PG faculty are committed to improving student experiences in this program. By applying interconnected self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-determination frameworks to increase student success in the doctoral program, the faculty will provide students with rigorous learning experiences and build academic writers and scholars. After all, vires acquirit eundo.

References

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Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H Freeman.

Bianco, M., Green, B. & Fussell, G. (2024). Cultivating resilience and persistence to increase retention in writing courses. In J. Cohen & G. Solano (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 1579-1584). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/224175/.

Claxton, B. L., & Dolan, C. L. (2022). A step-by-step guide to writing a literature review for doctoral research. Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Council of Graduate Schools. (2020). Ph.D. completion project. https://cgsnet.org/phd-completionproject

Hase, S. & Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301339522_From_andragogy_to_heutagogy

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