SELF-EFFICACY DEVELOPMENT IN ADULT WORKERS HOLDING SALES POSITIONS: A PRETEST-POSTTEST CONTROL-GROUP EXPERIMENTAL TRAINING INTERVENTION STUDY

Abstract

Throughout self-efficacy research, it is acknowledged that self-efficacy has an impact on individual's occupation. There is, however, a gap in the literature investigating if the knowledge of self-efficacy as a content area influences salespeople’s self-efficacy levels. This study evaluated a self-efficacy knowledge-based intervention’s effectiveness in increasing salespeople’s knowledge of self-efficacy while influencing their self-efficacy levels. Grounded in Social Cognitive Theory, I developed a training intervention that taught self-efficacy as a concept. Both the experimental and comparison group completed a pretest, the intervention or comparison training, posttest 1 and a posttest 2 one week later. Participants included 57 business-to-business or business-to-consumer adult workers holding a sales role in the United States. The results of the investigation found that the intervention increased knowledge of self-efficacy but did not increase self-efficacy levels, nor was self-efficacy knowledge a predictor of self-efficacy levels. Additionally, the study found that gender, level of sales experience, and age were significant factors in sales self-efficacy levels.