Impact of marital Status on Self-Efficacy: A Study of Non Teaching Secondary School Staff

Abstract

Objective: Self efficacy is the tendency of an individual to evaluate his/her abilities in a particular
context or situation. Self-efficacy is an important factor of an employee to influence his/her
performance. It is determined by many factors experienced by the individual in the life. The aim of
this comparative study is to explore whether is there a significant difference in levels of self-efficacy
among non-teaching staff of Secondary Schools of Kashmir as far as their marital status is concerned.
Methods: A sample of 300 participants (married=111, unmarried=109 & widow/widower=80) were
taken from various secondary schools of North Kashmir by using stratified sampling method. Selfefficacy
scale was used as a measure for the sample (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995). Mean, SD and
ANOVA were applied to observe the difference among the sample groups viz. married, unmarried
and widow/widower. Results: The observations of the study explained that there is a significant
difference in self-efficacy among the three subgroups of the sample. Conclusion: It can be concluded
that marital status directly or indirectly plays a significant role in determining self-efficacy among
non-teaching staff of Secondary Schools. Suggestions: Training programs, counselling sessions by
school psychologists and support from other faculty members can be used as interventions to improve
the levels of self-efficacy among the employees in general and non-teaching staff of secondary schools
in particular.