New General Self-Efficacy Scale

Factor: Power and Autonomy

Age: Adult

Duration: Less than 3 minutes

Reading Level: 6th-8th grade

What

Created by organizational psychologist Gilad Chen and team (2001), the New General Self-Efficacy Scale is an 8-item measure that assesses how much people believe they can achieve their goals, despite difficulties.

Who

Researchers have used this measure with African-Americans living on a low income (Roman, et al., 2009); homeless European-Americans, African-Americans, and Latinx-Americans (Businelle, et al., 2013); first-generation Latinx college students (Garza, Bain, & Kupczynski, 2014); and college students and professionals in the United States and abroad.

How

INSTRUCTIONS

Using a 5-point rating scale (1= strongly disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 5 = strongly agree), respondents show how much they agree with eight statements, such as “Even when things are tough, I can perform quite well.” Researchers then calculate a score for each respondent by taking the average of their ratings.

RESPONSE FORMAT

1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neither agree nor disagree; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree.

Why It Matters

Believing that you can overcome obstacles and get things done, or self-efficacy, is both a cause and a consequence of factors related to social mobility. For example, Boardman and Robert (2000) found that less self-efficacy is associated with living in poor neighborhoods, while Bandura and colleagues (1996) found that high self-efficacy predicts academic success. Likewise, Roman and colleagues found that, among Americans living on a low income in public housing developments, self-efficacy predicts physical activity and better health (Roman et al., 2009).

Although there are many measures of self-efficacy, research suggests that Chen and colleagues’ New General Measure is more reliable and valid than others (Scherbaum, Cohen-Charash, & Kern, 2006).

HEADS UP

Though it is plausible that increasing self-efficacy could contribute to social mobility, no research has directly tested this hypothesis.

References

Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (1996). Multifaceted impact of self‐efficacy beliefs on academic functioning. Child Development, 67(3), 1206-1222.

Boardman, J. D., & Robert, S. A. (2000). Neighborhood socioeconomic status and perceptions of self-efficacy. Sociological Perspectives, 43(1), 117-136.

Businelle, M. S., Cuate, E. L., Kesh, A., Poonawalla, I. B., & Kendzor, D. E. (2013). Comparing homeless smokers to economically disadvantaged domiciled smokers. American Journal of Public Health, 103(S2), S218-S220.

Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4(1), 62-83.

Garza, K. K., Bain, S. F., & Kupczynski, L. (2014). Resiliency, self-efficacy, and persistence of college seniors in higher education. Research in Higher Education Journal, 26, 1.

Roman, C. G., Knight, C. R., Chalfin, A., & Popkin, S. J. (2009). The relation of the perceived environment to fear, physical activity, and health in public housing developments: Evidence from Chicago. Journal of Public Health Policy, 30(1), S286-S308.

Scherbaum, C. A., Cohen-Charash, Y., & Kern, M. J. (2006). Measuring general self-efficacy: A comparison of three measures using item response theory. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(6), 1047-1063.