ACADEMIC BEHAVIORAL CONFIDENCE OF FIRST-ENTERING ECONOMIC AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES UNIVERSITY ACCESS PROGRAM STUDENTS

Academic behavioral confidence (ABC) is a construct that refers to the students' beliefs that they can perform competently in a particular learning situation. Students become motivated when they believe that they can be successful in learning new material and performing new tasks. Confidence relates to self-efficacy and contributes to achievement. Confident students have been found to be better able to attain goals than students who do not have confidence in their own abilities. The current study seeks to gain insight into the Academic Behavioral Confidence (ABC) of first-entering university access program students intending to enroll for the Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) degree. The study adopts a quantitative-descriptive (survey) design. The respondents, 51 university access program students, completed the questionnaires on their own, at the same time and the author was present to respond to concerns raised. This measure ensured that respondents do not collude and give responses that are not authentic and secured a hundred percent return on the questionnaires. A generally low level of academic confidence was discovered. This clearly indicates that these students need a greater and comprehensive support in order to succeed.