Self-Confidence and its Effects on the Student’s Academic Performance

Self-confidence is a vital part of an individual’s life, and self-confidence in students is the most prominent factor in their success. It provides a thriving and necessary environment for students to learn for their bright future and can prevent them from dropping out from college, ensure that students keep their love for learning and help them attain their dreams and goals.

What is Self-Confidence?

Self-confidence is how much an individual believes in himself in terms of his abilities, capabilities, strengths, qualities, and judgement in daily challenges to achieve his goals. A confident student is more competent to attain better grades than a less confident student. It helps the students to cope with challenging situations and makes them able to overcome difficult circumstances.

Benefits of self-confidence in students

• Develops resilience in students: Self-confidence helps students develop skills to cope with problematic situations. It teaches you how to handle challenges and provides acceptance that failure is part of life, which will start to take root. The more self-confident you are, the more you develop resilience. People with self-confidence are more likely to use unique strategies to overcome a challenge than people with low self-esteem.
• Brings Motivation: Building confidence means taking small actions that leave an enduring sense of achievement; it gives you the confidence to take steps toward your goals. When a student believes in his abilities, beliefs and judgement, he is more intrinsically motivated and capable of using his knowledge according to the situation.
• Better academic performance: Self-confidence helps students enhance their academic performance by learning about their strengths and weaknesses and knowing which part of their study has to focus on to achieve their desired goals.
• Instills decision-making abilities: Self-confidence is essential in making the right choices. A self-confident student makes informed and confident decisions about different aspects of her life based on all available information.
• Explores new opportunities: When a student has a higher level of self-confidence, it can open the doors to new opportunities to explore new possibilities.
• Develops Self-Identity in students: Self-confidence helps the students to know about themselves. Keeping a strong sense of self will make other people respect and appreciate them for who they are.
• Improves relationships with others: Self-confidence makes the students more confident, which means being themselves around others. The students are able to express their thoughts and opinions, which also enables them to have healthy relationships.

Strategies to develop self-confidence in students

• Establish realistic purposes: Encourage the students to develop their own realistic goals, which improves their sense of responsibility and thus helps them feel autonomous in their learning. Establishing achievable and reasonable goals for your learners will allow them to boost their self-esteem.
• Stop comparing the students with others: Students have different qualities and abilities that make them unique. When the teacher compares the students with each other, they create unfair expectations for some students. When students’ requirements are not managed in the classroom, they are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem. The teacher has to build a classroom environment that supports each student’s abilities to build confidence.
• Assign them responsibilities: Encourage the learners to take on responsibilities like decision-making leadership and enable them to work in a team; this encourages students to solve problems by accepting their own and others’ decisions.

Self-confidence is important in a student’s academic development because it prepares them to face the challenges that come their way on their path to success. It develops new skills in students that they can use when they meet a challenge.