Self –efficacy, academic achievement and happiness

Introduction: Happiness is a multifaceted construct that has recently been the subject of growing attention in the field of positive psychology and researchers have strived to identify its underlyingfactors. The search for happiness can be said to underlie all human behaviors. So, the aim of the present study is to investigate therelationship between self-efficacy, academic achievement and happiness of students and to examine the moderating role of genderin the relationship of the study variables. Materials and method: self-efficacy and happiness scale was distributed among 200 university students of Bojnourd (100 femaleand 100 male students) who had been selected randomly. The average score of the last academic year of the students wasconsidered as the measure of their academic achievement score. The reliability and validity of the scale were evaluated respectivelythrough test-retest coefficient and factor analysis and correlation of the total score with the subscales. Results: The results established the psychometric properties of thescale. For data analysis, the Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis were used. Only happiness was able to predictself-efficacy. Also, the moderating role of gender was approved, and only in the group of male student both efficacy variables (positiveand significant) and academic achievement (negative and significant) were able to predict happiness. Conclusion: The results showed that the self-efficacy could predict happiness in both male and female students, whereas happiness was a predictor of academic achievement only in male students.

Keywords:

Self-efficacy , Academic achievement , Happiness