Abstract:

Self-efficacy is acknowledged as an important factor in explaining intentional and purposive human behavior (van Dinther et al., 2011; Gallagher, 2012). This concept was originally developed by Albert Bandura (1997) within his social cognitive theory and was defined as the “beliefs in one’s capacity to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p. 3). Efficacy beliefs are strong parents’ characteristics that reflect how well they persevere when faced with obstacles, which choices they make to achieve their aims, and how effectively they raise children. Self-efficacy is not an in-born person´s characteristics. It is acquired through person´s behavior, employing efficacy sources detailed in the Bandura´s theory.

The current study concentrates on self-efficacy of mothers who have children aged 0 – 3 years. The study avoids the shortcomings of previous research on parenting in three aspects.
(1) While many previous studies concentrated on parenting of school-age or adolescent children (e.g., Zhang, 2022; Xian, 2022), this study explored parents of very young children, i.e., those children who live in the period of their remarkable cognitive, emotional, physical-motor and social development.
(2) While many previous studies investigated self-efficacy as an ultimate parenting variable (e.g., Glatz & Buchanan, 2021), this study concentrated on sources that support the development of self-efficacy.
(3) This study gathered data through focus group interviews rather that through self-rating scales, which dominated in the previous research (cf., Barnes, 2007; Boivin, 2005; Seetharaman et al., 2022). Participants of the study were Slovak mothers and fathers of children between O and 3 years. The sample consisted of 25 parents who participated in five focus group interviews, with groups ranging from 3 to 7 participants. Interviews were video- and audio-recorded, and then verbatim transcribed to form interview transcripts. These transcripts were then analyzed using the constructivist grounded theory principles (Charmaz, 2006).

The results show that the efficacy sources, as postulated by Bandura (1997), contributed to increasing self-efficacy of parents. However, these sources were anchored in specific parenting situations. The strongest efficacy source was the parents´ success in children´s rearing. When parents observed that their parenting behaviour was successful, they repeated this behaviour, which resulted in increased beliefs in their parenting potentials. Parents used children´s obeying as well as the developmental progress of their children as a significant mark of their successful parenting behaviour. This is in harmony with Bandura´s (1997) contention that mastery experience should have the strongest impact on one´s self-efficacy. Parents found inspiration for parenting in their parents´ parenting behavior, which served as a role model. This model was stronger in young mothers than with older ones. Mother´s parenting role model was stronger than the father´s. Another source of self-efficacy was learning by observing efficient parenting behaviour of relatives and friends. Parents observe how successful their relatives or friends are in particularly tense parenting situations and, if the observed behavior was in harmony with their subjective conception of parenting, they adopted it. Parents also learned from external information sources, like workshops, lectures, and popular literature on parenting. Lack of time appeared to be a factor to learn more from these sources. Parents emotions and love for children supported the parental potentials, however, too extensive emotions resulted in exhaust and high workload of parents.

In brief, parents talk in focus groups described the four efficacy sources suggested by A. Bandura (mastery learning, vicarious experiences, social persuasion and physiological and emotional states), however without professional terminology and language. Their accounts reveal uneven impact of these efficacy sources.

Keywords:

Parent, parenting self-efficacy, focus group study, toddlers (children aged 0–3 years), family education.