TASK, DOMAIN, AND GENERAL EFFICACY: A REEXAMINATION OF THE SELF-EFFICACY SCALE '

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1 Psychological Reporb, 1993, 72, O Psychological Reports 1993 TASK, DOMAIN, AND GENERAL EFFICACY: A REEXAMINATION OF THE SELF-EFFICACY SCALE ' STEVEN L. WOODRUFF AND JAMES F. CASHMAN Department of Management and Marketing College of Commerce and Business Administration University of Alabama Summary.-Self-efficacy is typically viewed as task-specific. Bandura also discussed the concept at a "domain-linked" level and level. Sherer and his colleagues developed the Self-efficacy Scale to measure general self-efficacy expectancies in education/vocation and social areas. A reexaminar~on of the Self-efficacy Scale indicated that the scale was more intricate than originally reported. It captured aspects of strength, magnitude, and generality of efficacy. The scale showed appropriate relationships to other personality measures. Criterion validity was established as the scale differentiated performance expectations. Evidence for the concept of domain efficacy was reported. The Self-efficacy Scale was a good measure for domain efficacy in the academic area; the scale has not yet been verified as a general efficacy scale. Research should be directed toward exploring the role of the total concept of efficacy in the cognitive process. Self-efficacy has been defined as the belief in one's ability to perform a task or more specifically to execute a specified behavior successfully (Bandura, 1977, p. 79). It was originally presented by Bandura as very task-specific and most research has been so conducted. Several researchers have explored the concept as a global one, called general self-efficacy. The first to develop a scale to measure the global concept of general self-efficacy were Sherer, Maddux, Mercandante, Prentice-Dunn, Jacobs, and Rogers (1982). Sherer and colleagues discussed general self-efficacy from the point of view that the construct is based upon experiences from a variety of situations. This assessment of that collection of experiences is the expectation that individuals carry into new situations. An alternative to this complete compilation process would be the selective interpretation of similar experiences. By this we mean that in new situations an individual's expectancies would be based on experiences in the most similar type of situation. Bandura referred to such when he discussed the idea that specific task efficacies might be "domain-linked." We call this domain efficacy. In this paper, we examine the concept of task-specific self-efficacy from Bandura (1977, 1986) as well as the development of the global sense of general self-efficacy by Sherer and his colleagues (1982). We examine the reli- 'Address enquiries to Steven Woodruff, De artment of Management and Marketing, College of Commerce and Business Administration, TR~ University of Alabama, Box , Tuscaloosa, AL

2 424 S. L. WOODRUFF & J. E CASHMAN ability and validity of the Self-efficacy Scale developed by Sherer and colleagues. We discuss how the scale relates to the total concept of efficacy. Finally, we propose and explore a new concept, domain self-efficacy. Bandura 's Task-speczfic Self-efficacy Bandura stated, "perceived self-efficacy is defined as people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances" (1986, p. 391). Self-efficacy has three dimensions, magnitude (or level), strength, and generality (1977, p. 85). Magnitude deals with the belief about performance in increasingly difficult aspects of the task. Strength refers to the effort placed on maintaining the behavior in spite of obstacles. Generality addresses the broadness of applicability of the belief. While most of the work by Bandura and his associates has focused on very specific tasks, Bandura has stated regarding generality, "some lunds of experiences create only limited mastery expectations, whde still others instill a more generalized sense of efficacy that extends beyond the specific treatment aspect" (pp ). Bandura in his focus on task-specific self-efficacy has utilized a "rnicroanalytic approach" (1986, p. 396); however, he has spoken of efficacy at a "domain-linked" level (1986, p. 396), a general level, and even as a collective entity (1986, pp ). General Efficacy The first major attempt by researchers to explore the construct of general self-efficacy emanated from Bandura's work on task-specific self-efficacy. This work resulted in a measurement of the construct which was published in 1982 by Sherer and his colleagues. They posited that "an individual's past experiences with success and fdure in a variety of situations should result in a general set of expectations that the individual carries into new situations" (Sherer, et al., 1982, p. 664). From this conceptualization, they deveioped the Self-efficacy Scale to measure general self-efficacy. The scale was originally developed as a 36-item scale using a 14-point rating in Likert format. The first presentation of the scale (Sherer, et al., 1982) documented the reduction to a Witem scale with two distinct subscales of general self-efficacy and social self-efficacy (seven flller items are used to make it a 30-item scale). They reported the results of two studies. The first showed evidence of construct validity in that the Self-efficacy Scale had theoretically appropriate correlations with six personality measures. A second study examined criterion validity and yielded positive correlations between the scale scores and measures of vocational, educational, and military career success. A second presentation of the scale (Sherer & Adams, 1983) changed the scale to only five points but retained the Likert format. Sherer and Adams reported additional construct validity for the scale through its correlations

3 REEXAMINATION OF SELF-EFFICACY SCALE 425 with scores on MMPI subscales, the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule, and the Bem Sex-role Inventory. Furthermore in the original development, Sherer and colleagues noted that scale was to measure general self-efficacy in "areas such as social skills or vocational competence" (p. 665). The items were concerned with three aspects of behavior, initiation, expending effort, and persistence in spite of adversity. To explore further the total concept of efficacy, we conducted a study to examine the relationship between general and task-specific efficacy. The study utilized the Self-efficacy Scale developed by Sherer and his colleagues and a task-specific efficacy measure relating to an academic task to provide further corroboration of the Self-efficacy Scale. METHOD The study was conducted using 400 students (220 men and 180 women) in an introductory management class. The students completed the Self-efficacy Scale, the Mastery Scale (Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan, & Mullan, 1981), and a self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Each of these additional scales measures personality characteristics which have strong theoretical relationships to self-efficacy yet are not synonymous with the construct. These students were also given a management-specific efficacy scale, developed along the guidelines proposed by Bandura (1977). The data were then analyzed according to the methods used in the original scale development to provide corroboration of the scale with respect to its reliability and validity. Reliability The first step taken in assessing the scale was to perform a standard test of reliability. We found Cronbach alpha coefficients of.84 and.69 for the General Self-efficacy subscale and the Social Self-efficacy subscale, respectively. These coefficients alpha compared favorably with the.86 and.71 from Sherer, et al. To explore the integrity of the scale a factor analysis was run on the data (N = 400) using SPSSX (SPSS, Inc., 1988). In the original development of the scale, a factor analysis had identified two factors, which are the basis for the two subscales, General Self-efficacy and Social Self-efficacy. Sherer, et al. found the original exploratory results held in a confirmatory factor analysis. Prior to our factor analysis, a Kaiser-Meyer-Ollun measure was performed to check the sampling adequacy (Kaiser, 1974). A value of.86 indicated that the data set was appropriate for a factor analysis. We analyzed our data using a two-factor solution and varirnax rotation, the same procedure used by Sherer and his colleagues. The loadings of their two-factor

4 S. L. WOODRUFF & J. F. CASHMAN TABLE 1 LOADINGS FOR TWO-FACTOR SOLUTIONS FROM SHEKER, et al. (1982) AND PRESENT DATA (N = 400) Items General Self-efficacy Subscale G 1 When I make plans, I am certain I can make them work. G 2 One of my problems is that I cannot get down to work when I should. G 3 If I can't do a job the first time, I keep trying until I can. G 4 When I set important goals for myself, I rarely achieve them. G 5 I give up on things before completing them. G 6 I avoid facing difficulties. G 7 If something looks too complicated, I will not even bother to try It. G 8 When I have something unpleasant to do, I stick to it until I finish it. G 9 When I decide to do something, I go righr to work on it. GI0 When trying to learn something new, I soon give up if I am not initially successful. GI1 When unexpected problems occur, I don't handle them very well. GI2 I avoid trying to learn new things when they look too difficult for me. GI3 Failure just makes me try harder. GI4 I feel insecure about my abllity to do things. GI5 I am a self-reliant person. Gl6 I give up easily. GI7 I do not seem capable of dealing with most problems that come up in my life. Social Self-efficacy Subscale S 1 It is difficult for me to make new friends. S 2 If I see someone I would like to meet, I go to that person in. stead of waiting for him or her to come ro me. S 3 If I meet someone interesting who is very hard to make friends with, I'll soon stop trying to make friends with that person. S 4 When I'm trying to become friends with someone who seems uninterested at first, I don't give up very easily. S 5 I do not handle myself well in social gatherings. S 6 I have acquired my friends through my personal abilities at making friends. Factor Loadings Sherer, et al. Present solution and our two-factor solution are provided in Table 1. Although the loadings are not the same, the items do load on the same factors for each of the data sets. However, a scree plot of the data suggested that a five- or six-factor solution would best fit the data. The general rule of eigenvalues greater than one would suggest a six-factor solution. Furthermore, Sherer and colleagues stated that the items measured general self-efficacy expectancies "in areas

5 REEXAMINATION OF SELF-EFFICACY SCALE 427 such as social skius or vocational competence. These items focused on three areas: (a) willingness to initiate behavior, (b) willingness to expend effort in completing the behavior, and (c) persistence in the face of adversity" (p. 665). This quotation strongly suggests that there may be two major areas with three subareas for each which could produce a six-factor solution. From this we would expect three social factors and three general factors. The six-factor solution, using varimax rotation, produced two factors for the Social Self-efficacy subscale and four for the General Self-efficacy subscale. The fourth general factor was a doublet of general items (G4 and G5) with strong secondary loadings on a different factor of general items. Reanalysis using a five-factor solution placed the doublet on the secondary factor. From the development process utilized by Sherer and his colleagues, there was reason to believe that the factors might be strongly correlated. The factor correlation matrix, shown in Table 2, does indicate some correlation between the factors. The use of an oblique rotation, however, did not seem warranted. Even though the correlation between the factors does indeed account for some of the total variance, we cannot justify redistributing a portion of the explained variance to the factors. We do not have accurate enough measures or complete enough understanding of the complex dynamics of the relationships among the factors. We therefore use the varimax rotation, which provides for the present a more parsimonious solution. TABLE 2 FACTOR CORRELATION MATRIX (N = 400) Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor Factor 2,150 Factor 3,355,203 Factor 4, ,217 Factor 5,443,319,379,107 The final loadings using a five-factor solution with a varimax rotation are shown in Table 3. Although these results are different from the empirical results of Sherer, et al., the factors are consistent with the conceptual framework they extrapolated from Bandura's social cognitive theory and concept of task-specific efficacy. Bandura stated that efficacy had three components of strength, magnitude, and generality. The factors identified here appear to capture the essence of Bandura's idea of efficacy. For Factor 1, General efficacy magnitude, the items capture efficacy over difficult levels of performance. For Factor 2, General efficacy strength, the items capture efficacy in spite of obstacles. For Factor 3, General efficacy competence, the items capture a base level general sense of competence. For Factor 4, Social efficacy competence, the items capture a base level general sense of social competence. And, on Factor 5, Social efficacy strength, the items capture social

6 Factor 1 (alpha =,741 S. L. WODRUFF & J. F. CASI-IMAN TABLE 3 LOADINGS FOR FNE-FACTOR SOLUTION (N = 400) FactorlItem General Self-efficacy Subscale Factor Loadings - G 7 If something looks too complicated, I will not even bocher to try It. GI2 I avoid trying to learn new things when they look too difficult for me. GI0 When trying to learn something new, I soon give up if I am not initialy successful. G16 I give up easily. G 6 I avoid facing dfficulties. Factor 2 (alpha =.75) G 9 When I decide to do something, I go right to work on it. G 8 When I have something unpleasant to do, I stick to it until I finish it. G 5 I give up on things before completing them. G 2 One of my problems is that I cannot get down to work when I should.,459 G 3 If I can't do a job the first time, I keep trying until I can.,457 G13 Failure just makes me try harder.,410 G 1 When I make plans, I am certain I can make them work.,378 G 4 When I set important goals for myself, I rarely achieve them..336 Factor 3 (alpha =,641 G14 I feel insecure about my ability to do chings.,592 GI1 When unexpected problems occur, I don't handle them very weu..533 G15 I am a self-reliant person. GI7 I do not seem capable of dealing with most problems that come up in my life. Social Self-efficacy Subscale Factor 4 (alpha =.68) S 1 It is difficult for me to make new friends. S 5 I do not handle myself well in social gatherings. S 6 I have acquired my friends through my personal abilities at mak. ing friends. Factor 5 (alpha =,571 S 2 If I see someone I would like to meet, I go to that person instead of waiting for him or her to come to me. S 3 If I meet someone interesting who is very hard to make friends with. I'll soon stop. trying. - to make friends with that person. S 4 When I'm crying co become friends with someone who seems uninterested at first. I don'c give uo verv easilv. efficacy in spite of obstacles. Alpha coefficients are also shown in Table 3 for each factor. Conshtrct Validity To verify the construct validity, scores on the Self-efficacy Scale were compared with those on scales measuring constructs theoretically related to

7 REEXAMINATION OF SELF-EFFICACY SCALE 429 general self-efficacy. The scales used for this purpose have already been mentioned. It should be noted that the Mastery Scale we used may be compared to the Personal Control Subscale used by Sherer, et al. since both scales attempt to capture the control one has over one's own life. However, the scales are different in direction, that is, for the Mastery Scale a higher score indicates greater control of one's life. Table 4 shows the Pearson correlations of the various measures with scores on the Self-efficacy Scale. As can be seen, these figures compare favorably with those obtained by Sherer and his associates. The significance of these correlations between the measures provides evidence for construct vahdity. TABLE 4 Study Rotrer Rosenberg Mastery Task-specific I-E Scale Self-esteem Scale Efficacy General Self-efficacy Sherer, et al. (14-point scale) * N/A Present Study N/A -.539, Social Self-efficacy Sherer, et al. (14-point scale) -.I * N/A Present Studv NIA ,189 Note.-All correlations shown are significant at p<.01. *Sherer, et al. (1982) did nor use the Mastery Scale but used the Personal Control subscale of the I-E Scale. Finally, as an additional indication of construct validity, we compared the task-specific measures with the general self-efficacy measure. Social Cognitive Theory would suggest that the relationship between task and general efficacy be positive and strong, and our findings as shown in Table 4 were consistent with that. The significant relationship between the General Selfefficacy subscale and the task-specific measures provides evidence of construct validity. Criterion Validity Sherer and his colleagues tested criterion validity through the use of data on employment and military rank for subjects in a VA hospital. They found that the Self-efficacy Scale was a good predictor of past performance in vocational and mihtary areas. Our study utllized a different rack, we focused on future orientation through goal selection. Since theory suggests that higher efficacy will lead to setting higher goals than those set by individuals with low efficacy, our criterion validity examined the relationship between goal level and general efficacy score. A t test was used to compare the General Self-efficacy subscale mean score for those expecting a grade of A versus those expecting a B in the

8 430 S. L \Y/OODRUFF & J. F. CASHMAN class. Those who expected an A had a significantly higher efficacy score than those who expected a B. The General Self-efficacy score of the A group was 68.0 (SD = 6.7) and that of the B group was 65.0 (SD = 7.2, p<.01). This finding provided additional evidence for the criterion validity of the General Self-efficacy subscale of the Self-efficacy Scale. There was no significant difference found between the Social Self-efficacy subscale scores for the groups expecting grades of A and B. The Social Self-efficacy subscale was not related to differences in grade expectations. It should be noted that for the course, the grading process did not include any activities requiring group interaction. DISCUSSION This reexamination of the Self-efficacy Scale developed by Sherer and his associates offers some additional evidence for the value of the scale, although some further refinement seems necessary. For example, consideration should be given to the development of items that reflect the social efficacy concept of magnitude. Further we are reminded of the words of Norman Cliff (1983, p. 117), "just because we name something does not mean we understand it or even that we have named it correctly." Although the evidence shows that the Self-efficacy Scale is indeed related to scales that measure self-esteem, sense of mastery, and even measures of task-specific efficacy, the question remains whether we are measuring the concept of general self-efficacy. Sherer states that "an individual's past experiences with success and failure in a variety of situations should result in a general set of expectations that the individual carries into new situations" (Sherer, et al., 1982, p. 664). This suggests that general self-efficacy is the summation or averaging of d individual task efficacies. Bandura noted that some efficacy situations have broader generality than others. That is, the feeling of capability in a particular situation may or may not carry over into different types of situations. From a Bandurian perspective, the general self-efficacy construct has variable strength depending on the dimension of life being considered and the extent of overlap it has with other dimensions. It should be noted that Shelton (1990), in discussing the development of her general self-efficacy scale, argued that efficacy is task-specific and only generalizes within a domain. This then led to her approach of measuring multiple dimensions of life to arrive at general efficacy. However, her account did not appear to appreciate fully Bandura's comments on generahty of task efficacy across domains. Furthermore, in the original development by Sherer and colleagues they state that "the items were written to measure general -self-efficacy expectancies in areas such as social skills or vocational competence" (p. 665). That is, the development of the scale focused on two principal areas, social and vocational competence. Both their development and our follow-up work were

9 REEXAMINATION OF SELF-EFFICACY SCALE 43 1 consistent with these expectancy areas. While this focus seems appropriate for some areas of study including aspects of organizational behavior, it does not necessarily address the broadest sense of general efficacy. What Sherer and his colleagues have done is to develop a general efficacy scale for two particular facets of life, the academic/vocational area and the social area. This does not appear to be general efficacy, but rather efficacy that Bandura suggested existed at a domain level and what we called domain efficacy. The criterion validity check on the Self-efficacy Scale showed that there was a significant difference in General Self-efficacy subscale mean scores between those expecting an A and those expecting a B. This difference did not hold for the ~ ~cial self-efficacy subscale. Since there was no component of a social nature (example, group projects) contributing to the grade, this expectancy had little to do with the domain of the task. Accordingly, we would not expect it to play a major role in performance expectations. This lack of difference hints at the concept of domain efficacy. Further, if the concept of domain efficacy is valid, we would expect to find a lower correlation between scores on the Social Self-efficacy subscale and the task-specific measure of efficacy than that between scores on the General Self-efficacy subscale and the task-specific measure. The generalltask correlation was 0.386, wme the social/task correlation was only While both correlations are individually significant, a Hotelling's T test for the difference between correlations indicated the general/task correlation was significantly higher than that for the social/task (p<.ool). This again hints that domain efficacy seems to be operating. Domain efficacy describes the beliefs about one's ability in a particular aspect of life. Domain efficacy then can be considered as broader than taskspecific efficacy and be the result of combining efficacy information about related types of tasks. It is not, however, as broad as the concept of general efficacy. True general efficacy may have several additional dimensions, for example athletic or spiritual, besides those considered by Sherer, et al. The domain efficacy of some dimensions of life may exert stronger influence than others in determining true general efficacy. The combination of order and relevant magnitude given to each domain appear to be individually unique. Other writers have hinted at the idea of domain efficacy through their use of the Self-efficacy Scale. For example, Earley and Lituchy (1991) noted, "because the General/Achievement subscale is focused on performance attainments whereas the Social Efficacy subscale assesses the building of interpersonal relationships, we chose to use the 17-item GeneralIAchievement subscale" (p. 86). Their studies were of college students and academic or intellectual tasks. Also, Eden and Kinnar (1991) appeared to use only the General efficacy subscale as they measured volunteerism among prescreened individuals who were qudfied for special forces duty. Given the preliminary

10 432 S. L. WOODRUFF & J. F. CASHMAN work by Sherer, et al., these were appropriate uses of the scale. In each of these cases, the researchers apparently viewed the General efficacy subscale as more appropriate to the domain being considered than the Social efficacy subscale. The possibility that efficacy exists at three levels, a task-specific, domain, and a general level, appears to present a much more complete picture and one which seems more in harmony with the processes of the social cognitive theory. The present study provides some insight about the concept of efficacy and how it operates in the Social Cognitive model. While the study offered some additional evidence for the scale at the domain level, in the area of an academic task, there has been no evidence confirming the scale as a measure of general efficacy. Research should be directed toward a better understanding of the relationship and exchange nature among the three areas of efficacy. Also, research should focus on developing a scale to measure the sense of general efficacy, which includes testing the Self-efficacy Scale for broader generality. By this we mean the scale should be tested in domains of life vastly different from its developmental arena to see if it is indeed capturing general efficacy or only captures efficacy in a vital domain of life. The richness of the concept of efficacy indicates that much work remains to be done to explore its intricacies and how efficacy is integrated in the total cognitive process. REFERENCES BANDURA, A. (1977) Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. BANDURA, A. (1986) Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall CLIFF, N. (1983) Some cautions concerning the application of causal modeling methods. Mtrltivarzate Behavioral Research, 18, EARLEY, P. C., & LITUCHY, T. R. (1991) Delineating goal and efficacy effects: a test of three models. Jozirnal of Applied Psychology, 76, EDEN, D., & KINNAR, J. (1991) Modeling galatea: boosting self-efficacy to increase volunteering. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, KAISER, H. F. (1974) An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39, PEARWN, L., LIEBERMAN, M., MENAGHAN, E., & MULLAN, J. (1981) The stress process. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 22, ROSENBERG, M. (1965) Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer. Press. SHELTON, S. H. (1990) Developing the construct of general self-efficacy. Psychological Reports, 66, SHERER, M., & ADAMS, C. H. (1983) Construct validation of the Self-efficacy Scale. Psychological Reports, 53, SHERER, M., ~ ~ D D UJ. X, E., MERCANDANTE, B., PRENTICE-DUNN, S., JACOBS, B., & ROGERS, R. W. (1982) The Self-efficacy Scale: construction and validation. Psychological Reports, 51, SPSS, INC. (1988) SPSS' user's guide. (3rd ed.) Chicago, IL: SPSS, Inc. Accepted December 31, 1992.