Self-efficacy, information-processing strategies, and acquisition of health knowledge

Abstract

Informed by the Cognitive Mediation Model of media learning, this study explores how self-efficacy and information-processing strategies jointly impact the learning of health knowledge. Using survey data (N_1409), the study examines the roles that self-efficacy, motivation of media use, news attention, and elaboration play in acquiring knowledge about swine flu during the 2009 global pandemic crisis. Results support the hypothesized relationships among selfefficacy, motivation, attention to and elaboration of swine flu news, and knowledge about the flu. Implications of the findings to advance the research in mediated cognitive learning are discussed.