This study examines the relationship between self-efficacy, verbal reasoning and school performance. 57 primary school pupils (34 boys and 23 girls), with ages varying from 10 to 14 years, from private schools in Rio de Janeiro participated in the study. The following instruments were used: a test evaluating self-efficacy, a subtest of verbal reasoning from the BPR-5 test, and two Portuguese language grades obtained by school evaluations. Results show that both self-efficacy and verbal reasoning predict the school performance of the pupils. Feeling confident and able to face assessments seem to be as essential and important in attaining good school achievements as being intelligent and able to reason about the proposed problems.
self-efficacy; intelligence; academic performance
