Domain-Specific Self-Efficacy Scales for Elementary and Middle School Students

Abstract

Background. Self-efficacy refers to students’ perceived confidence in their ability to tackle learning tasks. Research shows that self-efficacy serves as an important predictor of academic achievement and relates to students’ academic success, self-regulated learning, and motivation. It is therefore important to understand how self-efficacy develops and manifests itself in Russian schoolchildren and relates to their academic achievement. Objective. To establish evidence of the validity and reliability of domain-specific self-efficacy scales developed for elementary and middle school students. Design. Messick’s unified framework was used to establish validity. The surveys were administered to elementary and middle school students in two regions of Russia. Results. The pilot testing of the self-efficacy scales for elementary school, using exploratory (n = 972) and confirmatory (n = 972) factor analyses, resulted in a four-factor model, which was later confirmed with a different sample of elementary students (n = 1,392) with good reliability estimates (α = 0.75–0.82). The pilot testing of self-efficacy scales for middle school, using exploratory (n = 583) and confirmatory (n = 584) factor analyses, resulted in a three-factor model, showing excellent reliability estimates (α = 0.88–0.93). Conclusion. The evidence of construct validity suggests that the domain-specific self-efficacy scales for elementary and middle school students can be recommended for use by researchers and practitioners. The article presents ideas for additional validation studies and future research using domain-specific self-efficacy scales.

Keywords

• self-efficacy
• reliability
• validity
• academic achievement
• metacognition
• self-regulated learning