Self‐efficacy latent growth trajectories' longitudinal links with achievement and interest: Both baseline and growth rate are important for interest outcomes.

Background: Self‐efficacy beliefs have well established theoretical and empirical linkages to persistence and achievement. Budding theoretical and recent empirical research has worked to connect self‐efficacy to interest. Building on research in these areas, burgeoning research has begun to examine the relative role of intercept and slope of self‐efficacy for these learning outcomes. Aims: This study builds on and extends previous research by testing the longitudinal implications of self‐efficacy beliefs' latent growth for knowledge and interest gains. Methods: These aims were addressed by testing a fully forward, latent SEM, which included a latent growth curve (self‐efficacy beliefs' for a course of study) framed by pre–post standardized tests and measures of individual interest in the domain. This research was undertaken in the motivationally challenging context of a compulsory foreign language university programme in western Japan. First‐ and second‐year students from 10 faculties participated (n =1,184) across a single semester, resulting in seven separate data points. Result: The SEM confirms the important longitudinal roles of self‐efficacy beliefs' intercept within achievement, and both intercept and slope within future interest. Findings support and extend recent latent curve analysis with similar variables, lending further support to the critical role played by self‐efficacy beliefs' within the development not only of knowledge but also of individual interest as a learning outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]