The urgency of the problem justifies the significance of the study of psychological patterns and self-improvement mechanisms as a form of students’ self-development. The research aims to find out the role of self-efficacy and psychological well-being in students' choice of self-improvement strategies: acquisition, transformation, disposal or restriction. The diagnostic tools include the author’s Self-improvement Quadrangle technique, the questionnaire by M. Scheer, J. Maddux adopted by Boyarintseva. defining general and social self-efficacy, Riff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale adopted Shevelenkova and Fesenko. Mathematical processing of the results was carried out using the criterion φ* of the Fisher angular transformation and the Pearson dichotomous correlation coefficient. The research involved 277 students from universities of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan, the average age of 19.5 (SD = 1.5). The results reveal that students with a predominance of high self-efficacy prefer three strategies: acquisition, disposal and transformation. Students with low self-efficacy in subject activity more often use the acquisition strategy and do not use the transformation strategy. Such structural components of psychological well-being as autonomy, environmental management, life’s goal and personal growth play an essential role in choosing a particular self-improvement strategy. The results show the individual trajectory of students' self-development and help to carry out more purposefully the process of supporting the personality’s self-development. The obtained data can be used by teacher educators in a training process for students majoring in teacher education and psychology, by tutors and university’s psychological services.