Background and Aims: Academic self-efficacy, which is one of the factors that predicts academic achievement of students, affected by a variety of factors. This study aimed to investigate the role of dark personality feautures (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), in order to predict students’ academic self- efficacy beliefs.
Methods: In this correlational study, 230 students in dormitories of Isfahan University were selected through cluster sampling method (2016-17 accademic year). Owen and Froman students’ academic self-efficacy questionnaire and Johnson and Webster dark personality scale were used and administered for data collectionSpss-18 software was used to calculate the data.
Results: Results showed that there was a significant and negative relationship between the psychopathy (r=-0.341) and Machiavellianism (r=-0.364) with students’ academic self-efficacy (P<0.01). Results also showed that there is no significant relationship between narcissism and academic self-efficacy. Results of regression analysis revealed that negatevly 0.15 of the students’ academic self-efficacy could be explained based on the dark personality features of Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Conclusions: Due to the inverse relationship between academic self-efficacy and dark personality features (Machiavellianism and psychopathy), it can be concluded that these traits may have devasting effect on the students' academic self-efficacy, and consequently, their progress. The results of this study also support the role of psychological variable of the dark personality in predicting academic self-efficacy beliefs among students.