The relationship between self-efficacy and performance within a continuous educational gymnastics routine

Self-efficacy has been shown to be related to sport performance in a significant and reciprocal fashion over one season and across repeated trials. The present study investigated the self-efficacy-performance relationship within one continuous (i.e. uninterrupted) sport task. Forty-seven participants had their self-efficacy and performance measured concurrently five times within one educational gymnastic routine. A path analysis revealed that self-efficacy was not a significant predictor of performance, nor was performance a significant predictor of self-efficacy. Previous performance was, however, a significant predictor of subsequent performance, and previous self-efficacy was a significant predictor of subsequent self-efficacy. Although these findings were inconsistent with previous trial-to-trial self-efficacy- performance studies, this may be due to a notion of overconfidence developed as a result of the routines created by the participants in an educational gymnastics course. The results further raise an interesting issue of whether the previously established reciprocal selfefficacy-performance relationship remains recursive when tasks vary within one performance.