Professional self-efficacy expectation scale

Abstract

The Professional Self-Efficacy Expectation Scale is a psychological instrument designed to quantify an individual’s fundamental conviction regarding their capacity to successfully execute specific behaviors within a professional setting. Distinct from job-specific competency assessments, this scale focuses on evaluating a person’s general assessment of their skills relevant to their occupation. This approach allows for meaningful comparisons of professional self-efficacy across diverse occupational fields and employment statuses (e.g., employed versus unemployed individuals).

Keywords

Professional self-efficacy, self-efficacy expectation, vocational psychology, occupational assessment, psychological scale, Bandura theory

Authors

Prof. Dr. Gernot von Collani, Dr. Birgit Schyns

Purpose

The primary purpose of this scale is to provide a domain-specific measure of Self-Efficacy tailored specifically to the professional environment. The scale seeks to assess the respondent’s general confidence in handling job-related tasks, challenges, and future planning, rather than their perceived ability to perform highly specialized activities. This generalized professional focus makes the instrument particularly useful for research involving career counseling, labor market studies, and comparative occupational psychology.

Construct

The scale is rooted in the theoretical framework of Self-Efficacy introduced by Albert Bandura (1977ff.). The central construct measured is Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungen (Self-Efficacy Expectation), which refers to a person’s belief that they can successfully perform a certain behavior required to achieve a desired outcome. While self-efficacy is often treated as task-specific, this scale attempts to bridge the gap between specific and general self-efficacy measures by focusing on the professional domain as a broad context.

The theoretical background for the scale is based on Bandura’s theory. The scale development aimed to combine both specific and generalized approaches to self-efficacy measurement, allowing for the assessment of general professional capabilities among both employed and unemployed persons.

Validity

Evidence for the Construct Validity of the scale was established through correlational analyses with other established psychological instruments measuring related constructs (see Table 2 in the source documentation). The correlations observed were consistent with theoretical expectations.

Key correlations (r) demonstrating construct validity include high positive relationships with other measures of self-efficacy: General Self-Efficacy (Sherer) (r = .69**), General Self-Efficacy (Schwarzer) (r = .77**), and Work-Related Self-Efficacy (Speier) (r = .73**). The scale also showed expected correlations with constructs like Self-Esteem (Rosenberg, r = .43**) and Sense of Mastery (Pearlin, r = .35**), and a negative correlation with Neuroticism (NEO-FFI, r = -.57**), reinforcing that the scale successfully measures the intended psychological construct.

Reliability

The scale demonstrates strong internal consistency and reliability across both the long and short forms. The internal consistency for the full 19-item scale, measured using Cronbach’s Alpha, ranges from .88 to .92. The Split-half Reliability (Spearman-Brown) was calculated at .88.

A short form of the instrument, consisting of 8 items, was also developed and exhibits high reliability. The Cronbach’s Alpha for the 8-item short form is .88, and it shows a very high correlation (r = .95) with the full 19-item scale, suggesting that the short form is a highly reliable proxy for the long version.

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis confirmed the unidimensional nature of the construct, “Professional Self-Efficacy Expectation.” A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that the first component accounts for 40.8% of the total variance explained.

Item analyses provided specific component loadings (K) and item discrimination indices (T) for all 19 items, with item loadings ranging from .54 to .81 and discrimination indices ranging from .49 to .75. The robust loadings further support the homogeneity and unidimensionality of the scale, confirming that all items significantly contribute to measuring the single underlying construct.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological scale (Psychometric Instrument)

Format: 19 items (Long Form) or 8 items (Short Form) administered via a 6-point Likert-type rating scale.

Language Available: German (deutsch)

Population Group: Working adults (employed and unemployed individuals)

Age Group: Adult population (Average age in validation sample: 38.7 years)

Population Details: The validation sample included N=153 individuals (88 women, 64 men, 1 unspecified), comprising 108 employed and 45 unemployed persons. Educational levels ranged from vocational school (Hauptschule, 4.7%) to university entrance qualification (Abitur, 55.4%).

Test Methodology: Respondents rate their agreement with statements using a 6-point scale where 1 = “stimmt völlig” (strongly agree) and 6 = “stimmt überhaupt nicht” (strongly disagree). For scoring, items formulated to indicate low self-efficacy (positively polarized items, marked + in the source table) must be reverse-coded so that higher total scores reflect higher professional self-efficacy expectation.

Keywords

Occupational assessment, vocational confidence, competence expectation, Bandura, professional confidence, psychometric instrument

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Gernot von Collani: [email protected]; Birgit Schyns: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Prof. Dr. Gernot von Collani, Universtität Leipzig, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie, Seeburgstr. 14-20, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Information regarding specific usage permissions or associated fees for this scale is not provided in the source material. The scale development and validation work referenced suggests a test development period around 1997-2002 (referring to Bandura, 1997; Schyns, 2001; von Collani & Schyns, 2002). The status of development is categorized as validated.

Reference’s

The scale development drew upon the following key theoretical and psychometric sources:

• Bandura, A. (1977ff.). Social Learning Theory and the concept of Self-Efficacy.
• Sherer, M. et al. (1982). Scale for General Self-Efficacy Expectation.
• Schwarzer, R. (1994). Scale for Generalized Competence Expectation.
• Snyder, C. R. et al. (1991). Hope-Scale.
• Stäudel, T. (1988). Scale for Heuristic Competence.
• Schyns, B. & von Collani, G. (2002). Development and validation of the Professional Self-Efficacy Expectation Scale.

Items of the Professional self-efficacy expectation scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.