A Systematic Review of the Stem Self-Efficacy Assessment for Elementary School Children

Self-efficacy is an important determinant of a child’s motivation and academic performance. In STEM education, self-efficacy was commonly employed as a moderator element that influenced children’s interest in STEM careers and achievement in STEM fields. Many works of literature have emphasized the importance of increasing children’s self-efficacy. This work aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of the STEM self-efficacy assessment in order to evaluate the factors utilised by researchers to assess STEM self-efficacy in elementary school children. Five databases, namely Scopus, WOS, ProQuest, ERIC, and Springer, were used to identify related articles from 2018 to 2023. Following the screening and eligibility phase, based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 25 articles were chosen for further analysis. According to the results of the SLR analysis, there are no specific methods for measuring children’s STEM self-efficacy. Aside from that, resources in promoting STEM self-efficacy were significantly reliant on mastery experience; however, verbal persuasion in STEM self-efficacy was not measured, despite being one of the most essential resources in self-efficacy for children. These findings are expected to provide educators with useful information on the affective domain divide, particularly in developing positive expectations for STEM education.