A Literature Review on Self-Efficacy and Stress Among University Students

An increasing amount of research is investigating the effects of self-efficacy in various areas. In the academic setup, predominantly, the correlation between self-efficacy and the student’s performance is being measured. Stress is another influencing factor on academic performance that has been widely investigated. However, only limited research is available on the direct interdependency between stress and self-efficacy for the academic background, especially in the first semester and over time. This article provides an overview of the literature on the theoretical background to self-efficacy and stress and reviews current studies on the interdependencies of these two factors. The main findings are that there is a moderate to significant negative correlation of self-efficacy on stress and a moderate impact of stress on self-efficacy and that the stress level and self-efficacy of students are changing over time. Based on these insights, and since there is no literature available on the timely development and direct connection between self-efficacy and stress, we suggest further investigating temporal and causal coherence.