Researchers working in educational settings are increasingly paying attention to the role students’ thoughts and beliefs play in the learning process. Self-efficacy, a key element of social cognitive theory, appears to be an important variable because it affects students’ motivation and learning. This article investigates empirical literature about the role of students’self-efficacy in education by focusing on the this research question: which are the factors shown to affect the self-efficacy of students within higher educational settings? to do this online by about 32 foreign studies were selected in accordance with our criteria and with the specific features of each study; they were coded. research method is as anecdotal and qualitative. the results of a review reveal that educational programmes have the possibility to enhance students’ self-efficacy, and that educational programmes based on social cognitive theory proved to be particularly successful on this score. Several factors appeared to influence students’ self-efficacy and provided evidence of the potency of the main sources of self-efficacy.Directions for future research are indicated.
 
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