Guide for Constructing Self-efficacy Scales

Perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in their capabilities to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997). One cannot be all things, which would require mastery of every realm of human life. People differ in the areas in which they cultivate their efficacy and in the levels to which they develop it even within their given pursuits. For example, a business executive may have a high sense of organizational efficacy but low parenting efficacy. Thus, the efficacy belief system is not a global trait but a differentiated set of self-beliefs linked to distinct realms of functioning. Multidomain measures reveal the patterning and degree of generality of people's sense of personal efficacy. There is no all-purpose measure of perceived self-efficacy. The " one measure fits all " approach usually has limited explanatory and predictive value because most of the items in an all-purpose test may have little or no relevance to the domain of functioning. Moreover, in an effort to serve all purposes, items in such a measure are usually cast in general terms divorced from the situational demands and circumstances. This leaves much ambiguity about exactly what is being measured or the level of task and situational demands that must be managed. Scales of perceived self-CHAPTER 14 Note that this date is incorrect. The book was published in 2006. 308 A. BANDURA efficacy must be tailored to the particular domain of functioning that is the object of interest. Although efficacy beliefs are multifaceted, social cognitive theory identifies several conditions under which they may co-vary even across distinct domains of functioning (Bandura, 1997). When different spheres of activity are governed by similar sub-skills there is some inter-domain relation in perceived efficacy. Proficient performance is partly guided by higher-order self-regulatory skills. These include generic skills for diagnosing task demands, constructing and evaluating alternative courses of action, setting proximal goals to guide one's efforts, and creating self-incentives to sustain engagement in taxing activities and to manage stress and debilitating intrusive thoughts. Generic self-management strategies developed in one realm of activity are serviceable in other activity domains with resulting co-variation in perceived efficacy among them. Co-development is still another correlative process. Even if different activity domains are not sub-served by common sub-skills, the same perceived efficacy can occur if development of competencies is socially structured so that skills in dissimilar domains are developed together. For example, students are likely to develop similarly high perceived self-efficacy …