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Developing a single-item general self-efficacy scale
Author
Di, Weiwei
Supervisor
Nie, Youyan
Abstract
General self-efficacy represents the global sense of personal capability across various situations and tasks. The aims of present study were to develop and validate a single-item scale, which balances the practical demands and psychometric concerns, to measure this psychological construct. The psychometric properties of the proposed Single-Item General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE-SI) was examined among 231 Singaporean adults. The GSE-SI was selected based on the expert assessment and four statistical methods. The results of three reliability tests demonstrated a substantial reliability of GSE-SI (.594 .607 and .726, respectively, mean = .642). It also showed a satisfactory content validity and criterion-related validity with a well-established multiple-item general self-efficacy scale (r = .795). The construct-related validity was supported by the correlations between general self-efficacy and relevant constructs (i.e. positive correlations with life satisfaction and positive emotions, negative correlations with negative emotions, task and perceived stress and illness symptoms). Importantly, GSE-SI and multiple-item scale showed consistent correlation patterns with relevant constructs (average variance reduction = .055). GSE-SI also performed similar discriminations across three respondent clusters divided on the basis of six relevant constructs, in accordance with the well-established multiple-item scale. In sum, this single-item scale of general self-efficacy can be recommended as a valid measure to complement the constrains of multiple-item scales in future research practice.
Date Issued
2020
Call Number
BF637.S38 Di
Date Submitted
2020