Leve lang leren: het effect van een positieve leerervaring op de self-efficacy van laagopgeleiden

Long live learning: the effect of positive learning experience on low educated workers’ self-efficacy Long live learning: the effect of positive learning experience on low educated workers’ self-efficacy For both public authorities, businesses and employees ‘life-long learning’ remains increasingly important to maintain their competitive position in relation to other players on the world market and labor market respectively. Life-long learning, however, is not self-evident for everyone. Lower educated workers, for instance, participate less in training than their higher educated colleagues and the difference between these groups is gradually increasing. Goal of this longitudinal study was to measure the effects of training participation and learning experience on the self-efficacy of lower educated employees with regard to learning. Lower educated workers of three different organizations (N = 359) filled out a questionnaire on three moments with an interval of half a year. Training participation alone appeared to have no effect on self-efficacy, but a positive learning experience was positively correlated with an increase in self-efficacy with regard to learning. These results are in line with Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. This demonstrates the importance of a low key training which is aimed at gaining of a positive learning experience among lower educated workers in order to increase self-efficacy and trigger life-long learning.