Science self-efficacy beliefs of upper primary students in Ireland

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aimed to assess the strength of primary school students’ (aged 11–12 years old) Science Self-Efficacy (SSE) beliefs, identify emanating sources, and investigate any gender-related differences. School SSE is defined here as perceived capacity to complete learning outcomes from the upper Irish primary science curriculum. The strengths and sources of participants’ school SSE beliefs were assessed quantitatively (N = 260) using the Irish Science Self-Efficacy Children’s Questionnaire (IS-SEC-Q). Twenty-five students were interviewed to further explore the origins of their SSE, and their perception of science in the classroom. Results indicated that students’ self-efficacy to perform scientific skills was lower than their self-efficacy to answer questions. Mastery experience was found to be the strongest predictor of self-efficacy in science skills, corroborating findings from other educational contexts. However, students report that they seldom engage in hands-on science during school, suggesting that Irish classrooms still lack student-led investigations. Gender-related results are also highlighted. This work serves as the first report of students’ school SSE beliefs in Ireland, expands upon existing literature surrounding the SSE beliefs of pre-adolescent students, and discusses implications for classroom practice.


Introduction
Science Self-Efficacy (SSE) has gained increased attention in formal education in recent years due to its positive correlation with student persistence to engage with, and achieve academically in science (Cassidy, 2015;Tang & Zhang, 2020).However, SSE is a novel area of research in Irish primary education.Research focused within this context is of particular importance considering that subject decisions are made at the end of primary education, with potential career pathway implications.
Previous reports indicate that although pre-adolescent children find science to be interesting and enjoyable (Archer Ker et al., 2013;Boiko et al., 2019), many are not aspiring to be scientists or study science beyond second-level, where it ceases being compulsory (Archer Ker et al., 2013).This strongly suggests that enjoyment or interest in science does not necessarily translate directly into persistence in science or science aspiration.It is widely accepted that beliefs and attitudes about science start from a young age, and many science-related beliefs solidify by the time students start secondary school (Archer Ker et al., 2013).Thus, students' self-beliefs about their science abilities and how they are formed should be investigated before this time period, to best inform classroom practice.This work focuses on Social Cognitive Theory and the measurement of the strength and sources of upper primary school students' SSE.
Theoretical framework: social cognitive theory and science self-efficacy Social Cognitive Theory is a theoretical framework that postulates that human learning is governed by reciprocal interactions between people's personal processes, behaviours and their environment and serves to explain how psychological treatments may incur a change to people's behaviour (Bandura, 1997).One of the main motivational drivers of Social Cognitive Theory is self-efficacy.Central to this theoretical framework is the concept of triadic reciprocity (Figure 1): people with higher self-efficacy are more likely to engage in behaviours that generate successful outcomes (Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020) and to persevere through encountered challenges, whereas those with low selfefficacy may either avoid engaging in the behaviour altogether, or give up more easily (Bandura & Locke, 2003).These behaviours, such as engaging in certain activities, could be situated in environments that provide more sources of self-efficacy, which further strengthen self-efficacy beliefs, leading to repetition of this behaviour (Figure 1).In terms of student behaviour in the classroom, those with higher self-efficacy may engage more in lessons, which may increase the likelihood of good performance on assessments, which therein may further strengthen their self-efficacy (Figure 1).
Science Self-Efficacy (SSE) can be described as a person's belief to successfully complete science-related activities (Bandura, 1997;Tang & Zhang, 2020).Students with high levels of SSE are more likely to obtain higher achievement scores in PISA tests (Tang & Zhang, 2020) and in classroom-based science tests (Britner & Pajares, 2006;Juan et al., 2018;Kirbulet & Kondacki-Uzuntiryaki, 2019;Webb-Williams, 2017).Those with higher levels of SSE have also been reported to have more interest in science (Marriott et al., 2019), persist more when they encounter challenges in science (Cassidy, 2015), have science-related aspirations (Sheldrake & Mujtaba, 2020) and higher science engagement (Lin, 2021).Indeed, students' perceptions of their abilities in science depreciate throughout adolescence, and they perceive science to be 'difficult' and not ' … for them', suggesting a decline in SSE (Archer et al., 2020).Examining young people's SSE beliefs, and how they are formed, may help to better understand how to strengthen them so that they can persist through new challenges encountered in future science lessons.
The four sources of science self-efficacy Bandura (1997) theorised that self-efficacy beliefs are formed through the processing of four sources: Mastery Experience, Vicarious Experience, Verbal Persuasion and Emotional State (Figure 1).Mastery Experience is derived from past experiences of successfully performing specific tasks, and has been demonstrated to be the strongest predictor of SSE beliefs (Dorfman & Fortus, 2019;Kiran, 2012;Usher et al., 2019).Succeeding in scientific tasks (i.e.positive Mastery Experience) can increase SSE, whilst failing (i.e.negative Mastery Experience) can decrease it (Bandura, 1997;Miles & Naumann, 2021).
Vicarious Experience refers to an individual gauging their own self-efficacy by watching the performance of others (Bandura, 1997).Verbal Persuasion refers to a scenario where an individual is being praised on their abilities.Emotional State can be described as the emotional and psychological state that individuals experience when they perform tasks (Bandura, 1997).Emotional State is often measured as perceived levels of negative emotions such as stress, worry or fear when engaging in science-related tasks (Usher & Pajares, 2009).These four theoretical sources have been empirically supported by both qualitative and quantitative studies across different subject areas and school levels (Chen & Usher, 2013;Usher & Pajares, 2009;Webb-Williams, 2017).

Literature review
Science self-efficacy beliefs of pre-adolescent students in Ireland During pre-adolescence (10-14 years old) is a key time when children form their attitudes and beliefs about science (Archer Ker et al., 2013) and when their self-efficacy beliefs are at their most malleable (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016).This is also often the time at which students' interest in science begins to decline (Sheldrake & Mujtaba, 2020).Despite this, most SSE research has focused on students aged 13 years or older (Chen & Usher, 2013;Lin & Tsai, 2018), with relatively fewer studies focusing on younger students (Dorfman & Fortus, 2019;Webb-Williams, 2017).In Ireland, the only published indicator of Irish students' SSE beliefs is from the PISA tests (OECD, 2020), which is completed by secondary students (aged 15-16 years old).
Similar to other Western educational contexts (e.g. the U.K. and the U.S.A.), it has been reported that Irish students enjoy and value science, but also find it difficult (Boiko et al., 2019;Varley et al., 2011).Irish pre-adolescent students also begin to show a declining interest in school science from 11 to 12 years old (Varley et al., 2011), which may be partly due to a low level of SSE.Due to the relationship between self-efficacy and academic resilience (Cassidy, 2015), SSE beliefs should be investigated before this transitory period to better equip teachers to prepare their students to persevere through new science-related challenges they are likely to encounter as they progress through the school system.Whilst some work has been done to look at what primary students do during science lessons (Murphy et al., 2012), there is nothing in the literature regarding their SSE beliefs.

Differences in science self-efficacy beliefs between boys and girls
Since it has been reported that boys tend to harbour more science-related aspirations than girls (Archer et al., 2020;Sheldrake & Mujtaba, 2020), numerous studies have aimed to determine whether this gender gap also exists in SSE.In general, most studies have reported that boys have higher levels of SSE than girls (Chan, 2022;Lofgran et al., 2015;Marriott et al., 2019;Usher et al., 2019).There are some reports that are inconsistent with these findings (Webb-Williams, 2014, 2017).In a small study based in the U.K., Webb-Williams (2014) found that primary school girls had higher levels of SSE than boys.To explain this unexpected finding, the author proposed that the small sample size, or the pedagogical practices of the teachers involved in the study may have had an effect (Webb-Williams, 2014).Indeed, in a later mixed methods study Webb-Williams (2017) reported to finding no statistically significant differences in SSE strength between boys and girls, corroborating what had been found in the U.S.A., Taiwan, Japan and Turkey (Britner & Pajares, 2006;Huang, 2013;Kiran & Sungur, 2012;Kirbulet & Kondacki-Uzuntiryaki, 2019;Sezgintürk & Sungur, 2020).
To explore the origins of these differences in SSE beliefs, studies have also examined differences between girls and boys in relation to their perceived sources of SSE, which have identified significant differences between boys and girls.Boys often report to have more Mastery Experience (Britner & Pajares, 2006), and that 'nothing' lowers their science confidence (Usher et al., 2019).Contrastingly, girls tend to be more strongly influenced by verbal persuasion and vicarious experience (Zeldin & Pajares, 2000).However, several studies have also found no differences for Mastery Experience, Vicarious Experience and Verbal Persuasion between boys and girls (Chen & Usher, 2013;Huang, 2013;Kiran, 2012).Yet, it has been consistently found that girls tend to experience more anxiety/stress when doing science (Britner & Pajares, 2006;Kiran, 2012).To contribute to this area, this study aimed to investigate the differences in SSE beliefs between boys in girls in the Irish primary context.

Research purpose and questions
The purpose of this study was to investigate upper primary students' SSE beliefs and how they are formed, acting as the first report on SSE as it pertains to the Irish primary science curriculum.Moreover, it sought to gain a complementary qualitative perspective from students on how they form their SSE beliefs, and tentatively explore whether they have such opportunities in their science lessons.Lastly, this work also explored any differences in SSE beliefs between boys and girls.Underpinning this work is the intention of giving a better insight to practitioners on how students' SSE may be strengthened during science lessons.The research questions are as follows: (RQ1) What is the strength of Irish upper primary students' school SSE beliefs?(RQ2) What are Irish upper primary students' perceived level of exposure to the four sources of SSE, and how well does this predict their school SSE beliefs?(RQ3) What (if any) are the differences between boys and girls SSE beliefs?

Research design
The design of the study was largely quantitative.The strength and sources of SSE in this study was quantitatively assessed by the Irish Science Self-Efficacy Children's Questionnaire (IS-SEC-Q).Moreover, to both compare with the findings obtained in the IS-SEC-Q, and to gain a better understanding of how students feel they form their SSE, and whether they have such opportunities in their science lessons (RQ2), qualitative methods were also employed.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a small cohort of participants (n = 25) to further explore their perceived SSE sources and their experience of school science.Therefore, this study employed a quasi-mixed approach (Cohen et al., 2011).

Study participants
The study sample comprises 260 6th class students (123 boys, 137 girls, M age = 11.79,SD = 0.57, from 12 primary schools in the west coast of Ireland, see Supplemental Material 1 for details) that completed the IS-SEC-Q questionnaire.A subsample of 25 students participated in semi-structured interviews (14 girls and 11 boys, M age = 11.76,SD = 0.57).All participants, recruited via convenience sampling, provided guardian consent and child assent.

Quantitative data collection and analysis
The Irish Science Self-efficacy Children's Questionnaire The IS-SEC-Q is divided into five sections, each assessing a different aspect of SSE (see Table 1 for a summary of the sections and number of items, Supplemental Material 2 and Carroll et al., 2020 for a detailed description of the questionnaire).Each section contains several items, and participants were asked to respond on a 7-point Likert-like scale.Bandura (1997) recommended that to be most effective, self-efficacy instruments should be tailored to the relevant task and within a specific domain and context.Yet, this advice has not always been strictly followed.Some studies have used items that reflect succeeding in science class in a very general sense (e.g.Kirbulet & Kondacki-Uzuntiryaki, 2019), whilst others have created items that are specifically tailored to the learning outcomes of interest (e.g.Webb-Williams, 2017).With this in mind, the IS-SEC-Q was specifically designed to assess (i) the strength of students' SSE beliefs as they pertain to the Irish primary science curriculum i.e. 'School SSE' and (ii) their perceived exposure to the four sources of SSE.
In the Irish primary curriculum, Science is taught as part of the module of Social, Environmental and Scientific (SESE), targeting both conceptual and procedural understanding.Conceptual understanding is addressed within four content strands: Living Things, Energy and Forces, Materials, and Environmental Awareness and Care.Procedural understanding concerns understanding of the scientific process and developing children's scientific skills: Working Scientifically (Department of Education and Science, 1999a).In the IS-SEC-Q, the strength of students' SSE beliefs as they relate to the curriculum is assessed by Section 3 (Knowledge-based SSE, Table 1), and students' SSE beliefs related to working scientifically are assessed by Section 5 (Skills-based SSE, Table 1).This allows to pinpoint where in the curriculum students' SSE strengths and weakness lies, Table 1.Sections of the IS-SEC-Q.The Irish Science Self-Efficacy Children's Questionnaire (IS-SEC-Q) had five sections, labelled 1-5.Each section had a different number of items (a.k.a.statements) which had a specific purpose.Participants used a 7-point Likert-like scale to answer each item.SE = Self-Efficacy, SSE = Science Self-Efficacy.and potentially inform which areas of the curriculum require more emphasis in science lessons.
Students' perceived exposure to the four different sources of SSE beliefs was assessed by Section 4 (Table 1).Extant studies have generally focused either on SSE strengths, or SSE sources (e.g.Usher et al., 2019).Here, both constructs are assessed concurrently with the same instrument (see Figure 1 for links between constructs and instrument), to enable investigation into the predictive effect of the SSE sources on SSE strengths.The IS-SEC-Q also had two questions collecting participants' age and gender.Participants completed the IS-SEC-Q in their classroom and were given instructions via PowerPoint slides (see Carroll et al., 2020).

Validity of the IS-SEC-Q
The validity and reliability of the IS-SEC-Q was investigated in a previous work (Carroll et al., 2020).Results from Exploratory Factor Analysis indicated that the items in Section 5 (Skills-based SSE) represented one latent construct and could be presented as group mean scores.However, the items from Section 3 (Knowledge-based SSE) did not load clearly onto the proposed four factors (i.e. the four content strands of the curriculum) so these items should only be examined item by item.Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed that the items from Section 4 represent the four sources of SSE and could be presented as group mean scores.
Sections 1 and 2 (Supplemental Material 2) played a role in determining the convergent-related validity of the IS-SEC-Q.Briefly, Pearson's correlations were calculated between the items in Section 1 (e.g.self-efficacy to 'learn science') and Section 2 (e.g.'Get at least a 5 out of 5 in Science'), and the mean scores of Sections 3, 4 and 5.All correlations were found to be statistically significant at p < 0.05, suggesting strong convergent-related validity i.e.Sections 3, 4 and 5 were likely related to students' self-efficacy to learning science, as opposed to maths or literacy.All results from the validation study supported that the scores obtained from the IS-SEC-Q can be investigated and interpreted as presented in this work.
Questionnaire data analysis IS-SEC-Q responses were input into the statistical analysis programme IBM SPSS (version 24).Due to findings obtained from factor analyses (see section 'Validity of the IS-SEC-Q'), items in Sections 4 and 5 were calculated as variable scores, and items in Section 3 were examined independently.To calculate the variable scores, the response scores for constituting items for a variable were summed, and then divided by the total number of items for each participant.To calculate the variable means for the population samples, the summation of all variable scores were divided by the total number of participants.In summary, the outcome variables presented in this work are: . Curriculum-related school SSE (examined as 20 independent items) .Skills-related school SSE (examined as one latent variable) .Sources of SSE (examined as four latent variables: Mastery Experience, Vicarious Experience, Verbal Persuasion, Emotional State).
Independent t-tests were performed to examine any possible differences in SSE variable means between boys and girls.Multiple linear regression was performed to examine how well the SSE Source variables predicted students' skills-specific SSE (IS-SEC-Q Section 5).For all tests, the pre-determined significance level was α = 0.05.

Qualitative data collection and analysis
Interviews were semi-structured to allow students to expand on answers and to explore any possible new ideas (Cohen et al., 2011).Questions (see Supplemental Material 3) were adapted from Webb-Williams (2017).The word 'confidence' was used a proxy for self-efficacy, as recommended by Bandura (2006).'Confidence' is also used in this manuscript when presenting children's interviews and when cited authors used it.The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed (average length: 13 minutes, range: 7.56-17.31minutes).Transcripts were imported into the qualitative analysis software NVivo and inductive and deductive coding applied (Cohen et al., 2011).In the exploration of participants' sources of SSE, a predetermined coding scheme was employed, drawing on self-efficacy theory.Participants' description of their science confidence was coded as Mastery experience, Vicarious experience, Verbal persuasion, or Emotional state.Any references to enjoying or liking science were marked as emotional state.Responses to school science experiences were coded deductively.SSE beliefs were coded as: mastery experience (either positive, negative or mixed), vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, social comparison or emotional state (positive or negative).
The initial coding framework was revised according to an adapted method by Campbell et al. ( 2013), and is recommended when one coder is more familiar with the underlying theoretical framework than another.Two independent coders (the lead author and an undergraduate research assistant) underwent three cycles of negotiated coding, which comprised independently coding small batches of interviews (n = two, three and six), discussing codes, deciding which codes to retain, and revising codebooks accordingly between cycles.For each cycle, Cohen's kappa was calculated as a measure of interrater reliability.Cohen's Kappa value for the third cycle of retained codes was 0.69 indicating substantial agreement.The remaining interviews were coded using this finalised codebook by the lead author alone (see Supplemental Material 4 for final codebook).

Strength of students' science self-efficacy for the primary science curriculum
The first research question set out to approximate the strength of students' school SSE, tailored to the Irish primary science curriculum.The primary science curriculum is divided into conceptual learning (i.e.knowledge-specific) and procedural learning (i.e.skills-specific).To assess participants' SSE in conceptual learning, the descriptive statistics of the knowledge-specific SSE scale were examined (Table 2).These items were examined independently only, as exploratory factor analysis indicated that they did not represent a single construct (Carroll et al., 2020).Higher item means reflect stronger SSE in that specific learning outcome, whilst lower items means reflect weaker SSE.
Overall, participants had moderate levels of SSE in answering questions on topics across the curriculum, with means ranging from 4.12 to 5.59 (Table 2).A one-sample t-test was performed to investigate whether participants' SSE differed depending on topic.Participants had highest SSE in answering questions to do with 'How to look after the environment' and 'Saving energy & recycling', and least confident in answering questions to do with 'Wind and Levers', 'Insects & Minibeasts', and 'Different types of energy' (see Supplemental Material 5, for item group means and 95% confidence intervals).
To assess participants' SSE in procedural learning of the Irish primary science curriculum, the descriptive statistics of the skills-specific SSE scale were examined.These were examined as both a mean variable (named skills-specific SSE) to look at participant's overall SSE in science skills, and as independent items to identify any differences in SSE across specific skills (Table 2).A single sample t-test was performed to assess whether participant's SSE in their scientific skills differed according to the specific task.Results indicated that participants had highest SSE about asking questions about an experiment and collecting relevant information about a topic, and lowest SSE about choosing correct equipment for an experiment, designing a good experiment, coming up with an idea to be tested (see Supplemental Material 6 for item group means and 95% confidence intervals).

Sources of 6th class students' science self-efficacy
The second research question set out to explore 6th class students perceived exposure to the four sources of SSE in their normal science lessons, and how this influences their school SSE.This was investigated through examination of the SSE Source variables calculated from the IS-SEC-Q, and participants' (n = 25) explanations of their science confidence and descriptions of their science lessons in interviews.
Students' perceived exposure to the four sources of science self-efficacy To approximate participants' perceived exposure to the four sources of SSE, the means and standard deviations of the four Source variables were examined.Students reported to receive Vicarious Experience the most, followed by Mastery Experience, Verbal Persuasion, then Emotional State (Table 3).This suggests that students may have had more opportunities to watch the science accomplishments of others, than experience it themselves.The confidence intervals of these item means did not overlap (see Supplemental Material 7), indicating that the levels of perceived exposure between Vicarious Experience and Mastery Experience are statistically significantly higher than Verbal Persuasion.This implies that compared to their reported level of doing science tasks themselves or watching others do so, students report to receive much less verbal encouragement or praise about their science efforts.High means for Emotional State reflect high levels of science-related anxiety.The group low mean here indicates that on average, participants associated low levels of anxiety with science.
Predictive effect of the four sources on science Skills SSE Next, the predictive effect of the four sources on students' procedural learning was examined.This was achieved by performing a multiple regression analysis to determine the contribution of the Source variables (dependent variables) to the calculated variable skills-specific SSE (Table 3).It was not possible to calculate the predictive effect of the four sources of conceptual learning as the associated scale, Knowledgespecific SE, did not represent a single variable, as explained in Validity of the IS-SEC-Q.For the multiple regression analysis performed, the regression equation was found to be statistically significant at p < 0.001, accounting for 56% of data variance (Table 3).Mastery Experience was the strongest significant contributor with 1-point of its increase resulting in 0.40 increase in skills-specific SSE (Table 3).This indicates that students' procedural learning, as represented by the variable skills-specific SSE, is most strongly influenced by their past performance accomplishments in science.
Vicarious Experience was also found to be a significant contributor (β = 0.29, p < 0.01, Table 3), suggesting that participants in this study tap into their experience of watching others performing scientific skills successfully to evaluate their own ability to perform these skills.Emotional State was negatively associated with skills-specific SSE (β = −0.24,p < 0.01), indicating that high levels of Emotional State (i.e.stress) diminishes students' SSE to perform scientific skills.

Students' perceptions on where their science confidence comes from
To cross-check with the findings obtained by the IS-SEC-Q, and to gain an insight into how students' perceive their SSE beliefs are formed, participants (n = 22; some were not asked by error) were asked to explain how they know that they are confident (or not) in science.Answers were coded for justifications that matched the four sources of SSE (Table 4).Mastery Experience was the most commonly referred to source, cited by 19 participants (Table 4), mirroring what was found by other qualitative studies (Usher et al., 2019;Webb-Williams, 2017).
Lack of experience in general, rather than gauging self-efficacy from a past failed performance, was cited as the cause of negative Mastery Experience.Three participants, (Evan, Norman and Emily) explained that their low SSE was due to not having any past performances in school.Polly, who described herself as being not ' … the best at science but I'd at least like try my hardest', also explained her moderate confidence in science being due to a lack of exposure of science at school and that more experience might increase her confidence: Polly (S5): cause we don't do science that often here we only really do it once every few weeks or something like that Interviewer: Okay Polly: So we don't do it as often Interviewer: Do you feel like you have to do something a lot to feel confident in it?Or does that help?Polly: Yeah it kinda helps a bit Despite Vicarious Experience being the source that participants reported to having the most exposure to in the IS-SEC-Q, only one participant, Ciara, made reference to gauging her confidence from observing another person's actions.In this instance, it was an example of mastery modelling by famous scientists (Table 4).In general, the larger proportion of references to Mastery Experience corroborates its strong contribution to school SSE, as denoted by the multiple regression analysis from the IS-SEC-Q (Table 4).This provides further evidence that Irish primary students heavily rely upon Mastery Experience in the formation of their school SSE beliefs, and that individual hands-on experience in science may be an important factor in raising their SSE.

Students' perceived level of exposure to science at school
To explore what opportunities students have to receive Mastery Experience during school, participants were asked to describe their science lessons (n = 24; one participant was not asked as their interview was cut short; Figure 2).Most students interviewed (n = 16) talked about using their textbooks during science lessons (35% of 46 activities coded), whether it was for reading, answering questions or completing worksheet-based activities (Figure 2).Twenty participants talked about doing science experiments (52% of activities coded).However, despite most participants bringing up science experiments as a science lesson activity, many felt like they seldom do science at school.Out of the 20 participants who talked about doing science experiments, 12 participants then added that they do such science experiments infrequently.
We don't really do much science … we haven't done it in a while (Eduardo, S10) Sometimes … we don't do them really (Emily, S9) Some participants reported that they had not yet done science in their class that year, and then talked about experiences in previous years.These interviews took place in October, which would be the second month of the first term in primary school.
… we might do a science [experiment] one later but we only did a history one'cause we haven't done any science ones this year (Kyle, S11) Furthermore, students who talked about special fair days or external science providers (n = 5) mentioned that this was the only time they did science and did not do science as part of a normal school lessons (Figure 2).
We don't really learn about science, it's only on special occasions like when a scientist comes in or on science day (Alex, S5) In talking about the science experiments that they have done in the past, participants described working in groups, in pairs, as a class and watching teacher demonstrations.

Examining gender-related differences in SSE beliefs and sources
The third research question set out to examine whether there were any differences in SSE strengths and sources between boys and girls.This was achieved by performing independent t-tests on the knowledge-specific SSE items, the skills-specific SSE items, and the sources of SSE variables.
Investigations into differences between boys and girls for conceptual learning (knowledge-specific SSE) indicated that boys had statistically significant higher mean scores for six items: 'Solids, liquids & gases', 'Different sources of energy', 'Magnets, bulbs, switches & electricity', 'Natural & manufactured materials', 'Wind & levers', and 'Different types of energy' (Table 5).Effect sizes, as determined by Cohen's d (Cohen et al., 2011), ranged from small (0.25) to medium (0.48).The items with the largest differences between boys and girls (medium) were all from the 'Energy & Forces' sub-strand.There were no statistically significant differences found between boys and girls for any of the skills-specific SSE items (see Supplemental Material 8).
Independent t-tests were performed on the SSE source variable means to investigate any gender-related differences.The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between boys and girls for the means of three Source variables (Table 5).Boys reported to receiving more Mastery Experience and Verbal Persuasion than girls.Girls reported to experiencing more negative emotions whilst doing science, as indicated by the lower Emotional State mean (Table 5).

Discussion and implications
This exploratory study gives a first insight into where pre-adolescent students' SSEstrengths in relation to the Irish primary science curriculum, how their SSE beliefs are formed, and confirms trends that have been previously reported in other geographical contexts.

Irish students have higher SSE in conceptual knowledge than procedural skills (RQ1)
Investigation into students' SSEs strengths according to the quantitative data obtained by the IS-SEC-Q revealed that participants had higher levels of SSE in their ability to answer questions relating to the Irish primary science curriculum than performing procedural skills.This may be viewed as a disappointing finding, considering the emphasis in the Irish primary science curriculum to incorporate more inquiry-based learning in science lessons (Department of Education and Science, 1999a).Participants' lower SSE in their procedural skills (working scientifically) corroborates what was found by  Murphy et al. (2012) in a case study involving 11 primary schools.Classroom observations revealed that the most seldom occurring skills were questioning, predicting, independent planning, estimating, measuring and analysing (Murphy et al., 2012).These skills are most predominantly used by students carrying out independent science investigations.This suggests that the students that participated in both studies had insufficient opportunities to enhance their self-efficacy in these science skills, reducing opportunities to draw upon Mastery Experience.Moreover, results indicated that students were most confident in their ability to answer questions related to the environment and recycling.Two possibilities may explain participants' confidence in these items.Firstly, in addition to being part of the Social Scientific and Environmental curriculum, the Environmental Awareness & Care sub-strand is also a part of both the Geography, and the Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curricula (Department of Education and Science, 1999b).Therefore, students have three subjects where they can encounter this topic.Secondly, many primary schools follow the 'Green-Schools' programme, which applies environmental issues from the curriculum, including a student-led committee which directs all aspects of the programme (An Taisce, n.d.).Although not formally inquired about in this study, two interview participants ('Thomas' and 'Eduardo') mentioned that they were on their school Green-Schools committee.Teachers and practitioners may consider supporting students' SSE through similar inclusion of science-related topics in other curricular and extra-curricular disciplines.

Students may have insufficient Mastery Experience opportunities in science lessons (RQ2)
The second research question investigated pre-adolescents' perceived exposure to the four sources of SSE and examined the predictive effect on their SSE strength.Findings indicated that participants perceive to receive Vicarious Experience the most, which differs from previous reports.Britner and Pajares (2006) reported that middle school students in the U.S.A. rank Mastery Experience the highest, and Vicarious Experience the lowest.Middle school students in rural Appalachia also reported to receive Mastery Experience the most (Usher et al., 2019).In contrast, in Turkey, middle school students had highest means for Emotional State, and lowest means for Vicarious Experience, albeit the range was quite narrow, between 3.35 and 3.08 (Kiran & Sungur, 2012).The differences found across contexts to perceived exposure to the sources of SSE may be due to differences in pedagogical practice in science lessons at pre-adolescent ages.
Whilst Ireland's governmental Department of Education encourages students to perform open science investigations (Department of Education and Science, 1999a), this may not be the case in practice.The chief inspectorate reported in 2008 that only 39% of lessons observed to be 'good' or 'very good' in terms of facilitating students to plan their own experiment (Department of Education and Skills, 2008).More recently, an evaluation of student STEM participation in 40 primary schools across Ireland found 86% of observed STEM lessons (94 observed lessons) to be 'Satisfactory' or better (Department of Education and Skills, 2020).However, it is unclear from this report whether students' level of hands-on participation of science activities was evaluated, or how often students participated in STEM lessons.Murphy et al. (2012) reported that only 1 out of 15 science lessons observed involved students conducting a science experiment that they had designed themselves.In their descriptions of science lessons during interviews, none of the participants of this work talked about doing a science experiment independently, suggesting that participants may also have had few opportunities to receive Mastery Experience.In fact, students may have more opportunities to gain Vicarious Experience than Mastery Experience by doing science experiments in groups or through watching teacher demonstrations.This could also explain relatively low means for Verbal Persuasion in this work, as participants may have not had many opportunities for their science skills to be praised during school time.However, this study concerned students' perceptions and descriptions of their science lessons, rather than an objective measure of their content.Future work could investigate whether students' perceptions of their science lessons, including format and frequency, match the objective occurrence of the four SSE sources.
Even though students reported to receive Vicarious Experience the most, the regression analysis performed here indicated that Mastery Experience had the strongest predictive effect on participants' self-efficacy to perform science skills, indicating students who reported to experience more successful performances in science also reported to have higher SSE in their science procedural skills.The strong predictive nature of Mastery Experience here confirms findings reported by others (Britner & Pajares, 2006;Dorfman & Fortus, 2019;Kiran & Sungur, 2012;Usher et al., 2019).This implies that an increase of hands-on experiences in science lessons may help to build students' SSE in procedural science.Teachers have cited to experience numerous challenges in implementing investigative hands-on experiences in classrooms, such as large class sizes, small classrooms and a lack of teacher resources, equipment, and time (NCCA, 2008).Indeed, Science is integrated with Social and Environmental education as SESE, which has a recommended allotment of 1 hour a week for science (Department of Education and Science, 1999a), which is a very limited allotment to facilitate hands-on investigations.With these challenges in mind, teachers many consider collaborating with third party practitioners, such as science public engagement programmes, to increase students' opportunities to participate in hands-on science.
Boys are more confident in physics-related topics than girls (RQ3) The third research question of this study was to investigate any differences in SSE beliefs between boys and girls.No statistically significant differences were found between boys and girls for their science procedural skills (i.e.skills-specific SSE).However, results demonstrated that boys reported to have higher SSE than girls in answering questions regarding six items from the science curriculum, specifically from the Materials and Energy & Forces sub-strands, with effect sizes ranging from small to medium.Although not grouped in this fashion in the curriculum, these sub-strands are similar to topics that are typically presented as relating to physics.This implies that differences in physicsspecific confidence emerges as early as 12 years old, which may contribute towards the gender gap in the uptake of physics at second-level education (The STEM Education Review Group, 2016).There have been several reports that boys have higher physicsrelated SE than girls, albeit in the U.S.A. (Dare & Roehrig, 2016;Espinosa et al., 2019;Nissen, 2019).Dare and Roehrig (2016) reported that in discussions of physics in interviews, middle school boys seemed much more familiar with various physics concepts than girls, referring to specific topics in their descriptions such as ' … gravity, motion, lights, engineering, forces, electricity, and atoms' (p. 7).They suggest that this difference in awareness may be due to boys being more exposed to these topics than girls (Dare & Roehrig, 2016).
In the context of SSE, this suggests that the boys in this study may have had more opportunities to draw upon the four sources of SSE.Indeed, in this work the quantitative findings obtained by the IS-SEC-Q indicated that the boys reported to receive more Mastery Experience and Verbal Persuasion than girls.Moreover, girls reported higher levels of Emotional State, suggesting they experience more stress or anxiety when doing science-related activities, which has a negative effect on SSE.Yet, in interview discussions on where their confidence in science comes from, more girls discussed positive Mastery Experiences than boys.However, girls' discussions contained more coded SSE sources in general than boys, and the proportional representations of Mastery Experience of all codes were similar (33% for boys, 39% for girls).Furthermore, Mastery Experience was the SSE source most referred to in interviews for both genders, which may indicate that despite a difference in perceived exposure, both genders feel that it influenced their science confidence.Future directions could employ a quasi-experimental approach to investigate whether exposure to the same activity designed to increase Mastery Experience is experienced similarly by boys and girls.
An existence of gender-related differences in perceived sources of SSE has not yet reached a consensus in the literature.Britner and Pajares (2006) also found that middle school boys in the U.S.A. reported to receiving more Mastery Experience than girls.Conversely, Kiran and Sungur (2012) reported no gender-related differences for Mastery Experience, Vicarious Experience or Verbal Persuasion in their study with middle school students in Turkey.However, both agree that middle school girls feel more anxious than boys when engaging in science activities, which was also found here.Sezgintürk and Sungur (2020) suggested that any existing differences in girls' and boys' science SSE is due to gender socialisation in their surrounding environment.For example, Hand et al. (2017) reported that teachers feel that boys are better at STEM subjects, whilst girls are better at the humanities.If these implicit biases influence their science teaching, boys may be given more opportunities to engage in hands-on science activities and receive feedback on their abilities than girls.Future work employing observation of science lessons could investigate whether the provision of hands-on activities and verbal encouragement differs between girls and boys.This would determine whether the gender-related differences reported here are due to differences in exposure, or differences in how the experiences are processed.

Conclusions
This work serves as the first report on upper primary students' science SSE beliefs in Ireland.Assessing the strength of students' SSE specifically tailored to the Irish primary curriculum identified where specific strengths and weaknesses lie, more so than approximating students' general SSE.Students had highest SSE in answering questions relating to recycling and the environment, topics also covered in other subjects, and lowest SSEs in topics in relating to energy, wind and levers.Moreover, students reported to have low SSE in their science procedural skills.Assessing strengths and sources concurrently allowed for the investigation of the predictive effects of SSE sources on students' procedural skills (i.e.skills-specific SSE) which found Mastery Experience to have the strongest predictive effect.This, along with pupil's reported infrequent experience of hands-on science lessons, emphasises the need for more independent science investigations in classrooms to help to build upon students' Mastery Experience and ultimately, SSE beliefs.Lastly, this work revealed some differences in SSE beliefs between boys and girls, relating to SSE strength in learning outcomes for physics, and perceived exposure to Mastery Experience, Verbal Persuasion and Emotional State.In addition to providing an initial insight into upper primary students' SSE beliefs in Ireland, this work corroborates findings reported in other geographical and cultural contexts in a new country, discusses implications for classroom practice, and highlights areas for future research.

Study limitations
Firstly, whilst the number of questionnaire participants was adequate to perform the statistical tests employed, it was not a representative sample of Irish primary 6th class students.Although many findings corroborated with those found in other contexts, they should be considered as exploratory within the Irish context.Secondly, data on students' experiences of science at school was self-reported and therefore referred to participant's perceptions, rather than an objective examination of their science lessons.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Triadic reciprocity in Social Cognitive Theory.Those with higher self-efficacy are more likely to engage in behaviour processes that bring about successful outcomes, which increases the exposure to the four sources of self-efficacy in the environment, leading to increased self-efficacy.Dotted lines indicate focus of this work, assessing the SSE beliefs aligned to the Irish primary school curriculum and the four sources of SSE perceived to be present in participants' environment.Shaded boxes indicate constructs assessed by the IS-SEC-Q instrument.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Participant descriptions of science at school.24 Interview participants were asked to talk about their science experiences at school.Responses were first categorised into non-experiment activities (48%) and experiments (52%): 46 activities were coded in total.These categories were further categories into the specific activity.% = (number of participants who referenced activity/ total number of activities referenced) × 100.N = frequency of participants.S = School number.

Table 2 .
Irish students' school SSE.Calculated group means for participant's knowledge-specific SSE and skills-specific SSE, tailored to the Irish primary science curriculum.Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) are shown for each item.EA&C = Environmental Awareness & Care.

Table 3 .
Sources of SSE and predictive effect on skills-specific SSE.Descriptive statistics of the four sources of SSE subscales.For the regression analysis the sources of SSE variables were the dependent variable, and the skills-specific SSE variable was the independent variable.

Table 4 .
Sources of SSE discussed by interview participants.Numbers indicate the number of participants that referred to each source of SSE.Three participants were not asked this question in their interviews.SSE = Science Self-Efficacy.

Table 5 .
Differences between boys' and girls' SSE means (M) for knowledge-specific SSE and sources of SSE.Only items with statistically significant t-tests are shown for knowledge-specific SSE.No statistically significant results were found for any items in the skills-specific SSE scale.