Generality of academic self-efficacy judgements: Evidence of hierarchical relations

The generality of academic self-efficacy judgments was examined among 588 high school students. Students rated their confidence fur solving 42 problems in English, Spanish, U.S. history, algebra, geometry, and chemistry. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that students' efficacy perceptions prevailed beyond the boundaries of specific problems. The Ist-order model with a separate self-efficacy factor for each school subject displayed the best fit. Verbal and Quantitative Academic Self-Efficacy illustrated the relations among the Ist-order factors better than General Academic Self-Efficacy. The generality of academic self-efficacy partly depended on the degree of perceived similarity among tasks. When asked to rate their efficacy toward 8 pairs of isomorphic algebra and physics problems, students reported more comparable strengths of self-efficacy as they perceived greater similarity between the problems.