Influence of internalizing and externalizing problems on self-efficacy in Secondary students

Self-efficacy has an impact on the academic results of our students. This can be related to the internalizing and externalizing problems of the individual. We evaluated 1402 secondary students between 12 to 17 years old (50.71% male, M = 14.94 years) in the region of Zaragoza in order to analyse the relationship between internalizing, externalizing and self-efficacy problems. The results show how women obtained higher scores in internalizing problems and men in externalizing problems regarding aggression and antisocial behaviour. Internalizing problems such as Depression, Obsession-Compulsion (R-2=.302) in the case of men and Depression and Anxiety (R-2=.458) in the case women acted as predictors of self-efficacy. In addition, none of the externalizing problems predicted self-efficacy. The model between self-efficacy, internalizing and externalizing problems obtained a good fit and internalizing factors showed an inverse relationship with self-efficacy (r=-.36), while externalizing problems showed a low correlation (r=.12) with this. In conclusion, the study showed how a greater presence of internalizing problems leads to lower self-efficacy in secondary students as well as the scarce influence of externalizing problems in relation to self-efficacy.