Self efficacy is one of those precepts whose expression teeters between the wise and the painfully obvious. It proposes that people are more likely to act when they believe both that they are capable of carrying out a given action, and that this action will accomplish a desired goal.

As a team of researchers from Utrecht University explain in this quarter’s Prevention Science, Albert Bandura’s thinking on self efficacy provides the rationale for Home-Start, a widely implemented home visiting program designed to help vulnerable young mothers find the self-confidence they need to raise their under-five children well.

Home-Start has had a fairly rocky ride in the scientific press in recent times, regarded by some reviewers as being no more or less beneficial than any other expression of genuine sympathy and concern or source of moral support – but one lacking clear evidence of effect on child outcomes.

Maja Dekovic and her colleagues argue that studies of the effectiveness of Home-Start have labored the attempt to measure impact on child development. They focus instead on changes in maternal sense of competence, hypothesizing that measurable improvement in that quarter may be the key to Home-Start’s longer-term benefit to children.

The study they report tried to understand the dynamics of young motherhood by applying “latent-growth modeling” to assess changes in the relationship between mother and child. Latent-growth modeling uses terms such as “trajectory” and “slope” in its descriptions of effects, and tries to escape the limitations of pre- and post-test "snapshot" comparisons.

The Netherlands experiment included 124 mothers – 66 in an intervention group and 58 in a comparison group. The Home-Start group were visited once a week by trained volunteers offering emotional, informational and instrumental support. Progress was assessed at four points over a year.

Maternal sense of competence was assessed purely on the basis of what mothers said about how they felt. The other criteria (supportive parenting, inept discipline and child problem behavior) were assessed using composite scores derived from research observation as well as self reporting.

The results confirm some of the suspicions about Home-Start’s value. For example, the program had no significant effect on children’s problem behavior and the problem behavior in both groups decreased at a similar rate over the course of the study.

But the researchers argue that the latent-growth analytical model uncovered significant underlying differences. Home-Start mothers showed a stronger increase in their sense of competence and supportive parenting, and a significantly stronger decrease in the use of “inept discipline”.

“Participation in Home-Start was related to changes in parenting,” they write. “These findings suggest that maternal sense of competence may be a key ‘active ingredient’ of the program.

“By showing that changes in maternal sense of competence mediate the program’s effects, the study represents an important first step toward elaborating the mechanisms through which the program operates.”

The Utrecht team conclude that Home-Start's preventive performance might be enhanced by encouraging volunteers to concentrate their energies on improving a young mother’s sense of her own competence.

For more about Home-Start, see It's a simple idea – but does it really work? and Time to start stopping what we know doesn’t work?. For more about self efficacy, see A world of programs but not much to beat an ATLAS

See Dekovic M, Asscher J J, Hermanns J, Reitz E, Prinzie P, van den Akker A L “Tracing changes in families who participated in the Home-Start parenting program: Parental sense of competence as mechanism of change,” Prevention Science, published online January 26th 2010. DOI 10.1007/