Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1994, Vol. 79. No. 3, 364-369 0021-90IO/94/S3.00

Self-Efficacy Beliefs: Comparison of Five Measures

Cynthia Lee and Philip Bobko

In 2 studies, the researchers compared 5 ways of operationalizing self-efficacy that are commonly
found in the literature and assessed the antecedents and consequences of self-efficacy on the basis of
A. Bandura's (1986) conceptualization. Results indicated that measuring self-efficacy by using a
task-specific, 1-item confidence rating showed the lowest convergent validity with the other self-
efficacy operationalizations and showed the least consistency in its correlation with the hypothesized
self-efficacy antecedents and outcomes. Furthermore, self-efficacy magnitude and self-efficacy
strength (combining all the certainty answers) appeared to be inferior to self-efficacy composites
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based on combining only the strength items where the magnitude response was "yes, I can perform
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at that level."

The construct of self-efficacy has received increasing atten-
tion in the literature (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Bandura (1986)
defined perceived self-efficacy as follows:
people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute
courses of action required to attain designated types of perfor-
mances. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with the
judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses,
(p. 391)
Those who have a strong sense of self-efficacy in a particular
situation will devote their attention and effort to the demands
of the situation, and when faced with obstacles and difficult sit-
uations, these individuals will try harder and persist longer. Such
individuals are also inclined to attribute failures on difficult
tasks to insufficient effort.
When operationally measuring self-efficacy, researchers typi-
cally ask individuals whether they can perform at specific levels
on a specific task (responses are either yes or no) and ask for
the degree of confidence in that endorsement (rated on a near-
continuous scale from total uncertainty to total certainty) at
each specific performance level. One measure of self-efficacy,
labeled self-efficacy magnitude, is formed by summing the total
positive responses (i.e., the number of yes responses) given by a
subject. Yet a different measure, self-efficacy strength, is formed
by summing the confidence ratings across all performance lev-
els. Many published empirical studies have used either self-
efficacy magnitude or self-efficacy strength.
Our review of the literature indicated that the most common
Cynthia Lee, College of Business Administration, Northeastern Uni-
versity; Philip Bobko, Department of Management, Rutgers University.
Preparation of this article was facilitated by the Riesman Award to
Cynthia Lee from the College of Business Administration at Northeast-
ern University.
We thank Tom Lee, Edwin Locke, Karyll Shaw, and several anony-
mous reviewers for their comments. We also thank Sharon Beckstrom,
Joseph Czajka, Jeffrey Mello, Leticia Pena, and Frank Spital for their
assistance in data collection.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cyn-
thia Lee, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University,
304 Hayden Hall, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
364
method of measuring self-efficacy is to ask subjects to rate their
self-efficacy strength (e.g., Bandura & Jourden, 1991; Bandura
& Wood, 1989; Brown, Lent, & Larkin, 1989; Matsui & Tsuka-
moto, 1991). (Note that, for each definition, our literature re-
view uncovered many studies. We present only a few here be-
cause of space considerations.) Self-efficacy level (or magnitude)
is a second popular method for assessing self-efficacy (e.g., Cer-
vone & Palmer, 1990; Peake & Cervone, 1989). Also, quite a
number of studies have presented results on both the strength
and magnitude of self-efficacy (e.g., Berry, West, & Dennehey,
1989; Locke, Frederick, Lee, & Bobko, 1984; Matsui, Ikeda,
& Ohnishi, 1989; Podsakoff & Farh, 1989; Rebok & Balcerak,
1989).
As a third possibility, some researchers have used a combina-
tion of the magnitude and strength indexes. For example, Lee
(1988), Podsakoff and Farh (1989), and Taylor, Locke, Lee, and
Gist (1984) standardized the self-efficacy strength items by con-
verting them to z scores and then summed across only those
self-efficacy levels to which subjects answered yes. A fourth
method is a variant of the third (e.g., Frayne & Latham, 1987;
Gist, Schwoerer, & Rosen, 1989; McAuley, Wraith, & Duncan,
1991), except that one uses the raw scores on self-efficacy
strength instead of adding the z scores. A fifth and final method
of assessing self-efficacy strength is to use a single item for which
respondents rate their confidence level on a given task (e.g.,
Clement, 1987) or on each investment decision (Kerr, 1989).
There are many other ways to measure self-efficacy, such as the
use of multiple items with 14-point Likert-type scales (Sherer et
al., 1982), 7-point Likert-type scales (e.g., Barling & Beattie,
1983; Jones, 1986), 5-point Likert-type scales (Gould, Hodge,
Peterson, & Giannini, 1989), 4-point anchored scales (e.g.,
Bores-Rangel, Church, Szendre, & Reeves, 1990), or a 3-point
forced-choice format (e.g., Holahan & Holahan, 1987). These
measures do not correspond to Bandura's (1986) recommenda-
tion for assessing the strength and magnitude of self-efficacy
and, thus, are excluded from the present study.
Although studies on self-efficacy demonstrate its importance
in predicting and improving work performance, none of the
empirical studies focus on the correlations among the self-
efficacy measures. The purpose of our investigation is to exam-
ine the convergent validity of the five self-efficacy operationali-
 SELF-EFFICACY
zations and to present a validation of a partial nomological net-
work incorporating these self-efficacy operationalizations. We
conducted two studies, using two different tasks, with students
as subjects. Study 1 was conducted in a natural classroom set-
ting in which the subject matter (introduction to organizational
behavior) served as the complex, but somewhat novel task.
Wood and Locke's (1987) academic self-efficacy scale (com-
posed of multiple task elements) was used to examine the con-
vergent and predictive validities of the self-efficacy magnitude,
strength, and composite measures. In Study 2 we assessed the
generalizability of Study 1 by using a simple and novel brain-
storming task. Our self-efficacy measure was consistent with the
one used by Locke et al. (1984), who also used the brainstorm-
ing task in their study. Thus, we arrived at the following
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: There will be positive relationships among all self-
efficacy operationalizations (some of this will be because two mea-
sures are components of the composite measures). More impor-
tant, we expect that the single-item confidence rating will show the
least convergence with the other four measures, because of the po-
tential for generally low reliability, low validity, or both from single-
item ratings.
Antecedents of Self-Efficacy
Because we did not intend to review all the determinants of
self-efficacy in the literature (cf. Bandura, 1986), we only exam-
ined past performance and affectivity as antecedents of self-
efficacy. Of the major sources of self-efficacy, both ability and
past performance have consistently been found to be positively
related to self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; Locke & Latham, 1990;
Podsakoff& Farh, 1989; Wood & Bandura, 1989). Further-
more, Kavanagh and Bower (1985) found that subjects in whom
a happy mood had been induced reported higher overall self-
efficacy than those in whom no mood had been induced. Ban-
dura (1986) further noted that if positive mood activates
thoughts of accomplishments, perceived self-efficacy will be
boosted. As noted in Study 2, we had the opportunity to collect
data on positive mood states. This led to our second hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2: There will be a positive relationship between both
past performance and positive affectivity with self-efficacy (Study
2 only). Consistent with Hypothesis 1, we expect the single-item
measure to have the lowest validity with these antecedents. Fur-
thermore, we suggest that the third and fourth measures of self-
efficacy will have the highest validities with antecedent measures,
because of their information richness and because they reflect the
original conceptualization of the self-efficacy construct.
Consequences of Self-Efficacy
The overall thrust of self-efficacy research is to provide both a
mechanism that mediates behavior change and a parsimonious
account of why and how different techniques effect change
(Bandura, 1986). Other consequences of self-efficacy include
the setting of higher personal goals and higher task performance
(Bandura, 1986; Locke & Latham, 1990; Wood & Bandura,
1989). With this in mind, we proposed our third hypothesis.
MEASURES 365
Hypothesis 3: Consistent with prior literature, there will be positive
relationships between self-efficacy and both self-set goals and per-
formance. More important, and consistent with earlier logic, the
composite measures of self-efficacy will show the highest validities,
and the single-item measure will show the lowest validity, with
these consequence measures.
Study 1
In Study 1, we investigated the convergent and predictive va-
lidities of the various operationalizations of self-efficacy level,
strength, and composite operationalizations, using Wood and
Locke's (1987) academic self-efficacy measure.
Method
Respondents and Procedures
Participants (N = 207) were predominantly third-year undergradu-
ates in a 5-year degree program from six introductory management
classes. There were 113 men and 83 women; 11 undergraduates did not
indicate their gender. The average age was 21 years. Students were asked
to participate voluntarily in a study on personality. Individuals who
agreed to participate (approximately 90% of all the students) completed
Wood and Locke's (1987) academic self-efficacy questionnaire after the
students had taken their first examination in the course but before they
had received their grades. This timing was purposive, so that subjects
would have some information about their ability to cope with the course
demands and yet would not base their ratings simply on their grades
(Wood & Locke, 1987).
Measures
Self-efficacy. Because our sample consisted of students, we used
Wood and Locke's (1987) academic self-efficacy scale.
As did Wood and Locke, we excluded items that had extremely
skewed distributions with very little or no dispersion. As a result, only
two items out of five from each subscale were retained. For purposes of
comparison with Wood and Locke's results, we also combined six of
their seven subscales of class concentration, memorization, understand-
ing, explaining concepts, discriminating concepts, and note taking for
subsequent analyses. The Cronbach coefficient alphas for each of these
subscales were .86, .82, .80, .86, .81, and .84, respectively. The use of
coefficient alphas to estimate the reliability of self-efficacy strength and
magnitude is somewhat deceiving because Gunman's scaling was used
to construct the self-efficacy measures. We report coefficient alphas for
the purposes of completeness because most empirical studies have used
the same reliability estimates. In Study 2, the test-retest correlations
were .77 and .78 for self-efficacy strength and magnitude, respectively.
Students were asked to indicate if they could achieve a certain level of
attainment (yes or no) as well as their degree of confidence in their abil-
ity to perform at that level (on a scale from 0 to 10). Self-efficacy level,
or magnitude, was defined as the total number of yess divided by the
total number of items.
We defined self-efficacy strength as the mean confidence rating, using
a scale ranging from completely unconfidenl (0) to completely confident
(10). We computed self-efficacy strength by summing all of the scores
across items and then dividing by the total number of items.
Self-efficacy composite measures of strength and magnitude were
computed in two ways. In one method we took the raw scores of self-
efficacy strength and then summed these across self-efficacy levels that
were answered yes (total self-efficacy). The other method was to stan-
dardize the self-efficacy strength items by converting them to z scores
and then sum them across all self-efficacy levels that were answered yes.
 366 CYNTHIA LEE AND PHILIP BOBKO
The fifth operationalization of self-efficacy was a one-item confidence
rating obtained by asking respondents "How confident are you that you
will obtain the score that you are trying for in your next exam?"; sub-
jects responded on a 5-point scale ranging from extremely confident (5)
to no confidence at all (1).
Personal goals (examination score). This one-item measure of the
next examination-score goal was adopted from Locke and Bryan's
(1968) earlier study of goals and academic performance. This item
measures the lowest score the individual would be satisfied with in the
next examination.
The first and second examination scores were used as measures of
class performance. All of the examination scores were z transformed
within each of the six classes.
Results
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Table 1 shows the intercorrelations of the various operation-
alizations of self-efficacy. The mean correlation, after applying
Fisher's z transformation, was .62. (Note that the particularly
high correlations were somewhat due to common components
across measures.) Consistent with Hypothesis 1, the one-item
confidence rating generally demonstrated the lowest convergent
validity with the remaining measures. One of the noncombina-
tion measures (strength) also demonstrated relatively weaker
convergence. Table 2 shows the correlations of these operation-
alizations of self-efficacy with examination scores and self-set
goals. The results supported Hypothesis 3; that is, although the
self-efficacy operationalizations were all positively related to
self-set goals and task performance, the strongest and most con-
sistent positive relationships tended to be from the two compos-
ite measures of self-efficacy.
Summary
The results provided support for the convergent validity of
the self-efficacy measures. The one-item confidence rating and
self-efficacy strength appeared to have the lowest correlation
with all other self-efficacy measures and tended to be relatively
weakly related to examination score and examination-score
goal. With the exception of the one-item confidence rating and
self-efficacy magnitude, Study 1 shows that the two self-efficacy
composites and self-efficacy strength operationalizations corre-
lated highest with self-set goals. In interpreting the correlations
in Table 2, note that any two correlations within a column can
Table 1
Correlations Among Self-Efficacy (SE) Measures: Study 1
Measure 1 and outcomes.
1. SE magnitude _
2. SE strength .54**
3. SE Composite 1 .94** .71**
4. SE Composite 2 .90** .28** .86**
.28**
.28**
5. Confidence rating .29** .13*
Note. Ns = 163-205 for survey after the first exam. The confidence
rating consisted of one item. SE Composite 1 = raw scores of SE
strength summed across SE magnitude items that were answered yes;
SE Composite 2 = standardized SE strength items summed across SE
magnitude items that were answered yes.
*p<.05. **p<.0l.
Table 2
Zero-Order Correlations Between Self-Efficacy (SE)
and Goals and Performance: Study 1
Exam score Self-set goal
Measure r
xyi
SE magnitude .06 .13* .23*
SE strength .15* .12* .49*
SE Composite 1 .21** .20** .48*
SE Composite 2 .25** .20** .53*
Confidence rating .32** .08 .25*
Note. Values in the table are validity coefficients. The confidence rat-
ing consisted of one item. SE Composite 1 = raw scores of SE strength
summed across SE magnitude items that were answered yes; SE Com-
posite 2 = standardized SE strength items summed across SE magni-
tude items that were answered yes. rxyi = correlation with first exami-
nation score; rx>a = correlation with second examination score; rfy3 =
correlation with second examination score's goal.
*/><.05. **p<.01.
be tested to see if they are statistically different by using Hotel-
ling's test for dependent correlations (cf. Cohen & Cohen,
1983). Each test statistic is somewhat unique because of the
changing magnitudes of the intercorrelations. However, given
our sample sizes, differences in correlations over. 15 tend to be
statistically significant. Thus, for example, both of the compos-
ite measures had higher correlations with self-set goals than did
the single-item confidence rating of self-efficacy. The complete
set of statistical tests is available from Cynthia Lee.
As noted by Wood and Locke (1987), performance feedback
is usually task specific in laboratory studies. In contrast, an ex-
amination score is feedback from multiple tasks (e.g., studying,
class attendance, note taking, and memorizing). This perfor-
mance feedback is only given for overall examination perfor-
mance, not for the individual task components that bring the
examination score about. Thus, the self-efficacy ratings for such
tasks are probably not as accurate as they would be in single-
task studies. Furthermore, Gist and Mitchell (1992) stated that
in complex task situations, the complexity of requiring individ-
uals to estimate numerous skill and motivational parameters
may increase the error of assessment. Therefore, in Study 2 we
used a single, but novel, brainstorming task to further investi-
gate the convergent validity of the various operationalizations
of self-efficacy magnitude, strength, and composite measures.
In addition, we again examined the relative validities of self-
efficacy operationalizations to the hypothesized antecedents
Study 2
Method
Respondents
The subjects were 92 undergraduates from three introductory man-
agement classes of a 5-year degree program. As part of another study
(Lee & Bobko, 1992), each class was told that they would be experienc-
ing a different form of learning (through the use of a brainstorming
exercise). Although students in each class were asked to volunteer, they
 SELF-EFFICACY MEASURES 367

all participated. After the exercise was over, students were debriefed and Table 3
thanked. The mean age of these students was 22 years. There were 33 Correlations Among Self-Efficacy (SE) Measures
women and 57 men; 2 students did not indicate their gender. After Two Practice Trials: Study 2
Measure 3
Task _
1. SE magnitude
In the brainstorming task subjects were asked to generate uses for 2. SE strength .59*
common objects, such as a brick, books, clothes hanger, paper clip, or
3. SE Composite 1 .76* .90*
cushion (cf. Locke et al., 1984). Two 3-min experimental trials followed 4. SE Composite 2 .73* .50* .85*
two initial practice trials. Different objects were used for each trial. 5. Confidence rating .31* .28* .40* .41*

Note. N = 92. SE Composite 1 = raw scores of SE strength summed

Conditions across SE magnitude items that were answered yes; SE Composite 2 =
standardized SE strength items summed across SE magnitude items
There were three assigned goal levels: (a) the somewhat difficult goal that were answered yes.
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(n = 35) of generating at least 8 uses for a single object in 3 min, (b) a

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moderately difficult goal (n = 28) of generating 12 uses in 3 min, and (c)

a very difficult goal (n = 29) of generating 16 uses in 3 min. These goal
levels were achieved by 50%, 12%, and 5%, respectively, of the subjects
during a pilot study. Results
Table 3 shows the correlations among the self-efficacy mea-
Procedure sures in Study 2. The correlations are consistent with those of
Study 1. The mean correlation of the self-efficacy measures, us-
At the beginning of the class period, the task was explained and the ing Fisher's z transformation, was also .62. Thus, as expected,
subjects were then allowed two practice trials. After these practice trials, the results supported Hypothesis 1 regarding the convergent va-
subjects were given their assigned goals. Measures of perceived goal lidity of the self-efficacy measures. As hypothesized, the single-
difficulty and a self-efficacy scale were then administered. Subjects were
then asked for their personal goal for the next trial. Finally, subjects were item confidence rating demonstrated the lowest convergent va-
asked to brainstorm for two experimental trials. lidity with the remaining measures.
Part of Hypothesis 2 predicted positive relationships between
self-efficacy and the antecedent measures of past performance
Measures and positive affectivity. Our data (see the positive affectivity and
We measured individual task performance by the total number of past performance columns in Table 4) supported this hypothe-
uses given, deleting responses that were inappropriate (e.g., "break it"
for the object "brick") or duplications within the same trial.
We assessed a subject's self-set, or personal, goal by their responses to Table 4
a single item asking how many uses the subject intended to list for the Correlations of Self-Efficacy (SE) Measures With Antecedents
two practice trials and the two experimental trials.
and Outcome Measures
Self-efficacy was assessed in a manner consistent with Study 1. Sub-
jects were asked to indicate yes or no as to whether they could perform Goal Goal
at five different levels of proficiency (i.e., listing 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 Measure PA 1 2 Past Present
uses). Proficiency level (self-efficacy magnitude) was measured by the
total number of yes responses for listing the uses for each object divided PA .37** .36** .37** .34**
by the number of items to which subjects responded with a yes. For each
of the five proficiency levels, subjects also estimated their confidence After two practice trials
(self-efficacy strength) about their present capability to perform at that SE magnitude .29** .58** .51** .52** .53**
level on a scale from no confidence at all (0) to totally confident (100). SE strength .22* .52** .50** .54** .51**
Inspection of the individual items (five levels of proficiency) indicated SE Composite 1 .28** .63** .63** .61** .65**
that two of the items had very little dispersion and were making negligi- SE Composite 2 .19* .53** .58** .53** .60**
ble contributions to the overall measure. As in Wood and Locke (1987), Confidence rating .41** .34** .41** .54** .48**
these items (of listing 4 and 8 uses of an object) were deleted from sub-
sequent analyses. The self-efficacy magnitude, strength, and composite Controlling for assigned goal
scores were computed in the same manner as in Study 1. Likewise, we SE magnitude .31** .55** .49** .53** .51**
again used a one-item confidence rating by asking respondents "How SE strength .23** .51** .49** .54** .50**
confident are you that you will attain the goal of listing at least 'X' uses SE Composite 1 .30** .60** .61** .63** .64**
in 3 minutes for the next trial?" The Cronbach alphas for the self-effi- SE Composite 2 .19* .53** .41** .53** .60**
cacy magnitude and strength measures obtained after the first two prac- Confidence rating .41** .43** .49** .57** .54**
tice trials were .73 and .79, respectively, and their respective alphas after
the first experimental trial were .74 and .77. Note. PA = positive affectivity; Goal 1 = self-set goal after the first two
We measured positive affectivity on a 10-item scale developed and practice trials; Goal 2 = self-set goal after the first experimental trial;
validated by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988). Respondents indicated Past = past performance; Present = present performance; SE Compos-
ite 1 = raw scores of SE strength summed across SE magnitude items
on a 5-point Likert-type scale the extent to which they felt, for example, that were answered yes; SE Composite 2 = standardized SE strength
"excited," "enthusiastic," "determined," and "attentive" over the past items summed across SE magnitude items that were answered yes.
year. The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .88. *p<.05. **p<.Q[.
 368 CYNTHIA LEE AND PHILIP BOBKO
sis for all of the self-efficacy operationalizations. However, these
correlations were about equal when the antecedent measure was
past performance and the confidence rating was a higher corre-
late of affectivity than the other self-efficacy measures. Thus,
the differential predictions in Hypothesis 2 were not supported
in Study 2.
In regard to Hypothesis 3, the correlations shown in Table 4
strongly supported the validity of the measures. As expected,
the self-efficacy operationalizations were positively associated
with the outcomes of self-set goals and task performance. More
important, however, is that the two composite measures of self-
efficacy were generally the strongest correlates of the two goal
measures and present performance. (As with Table 2 in Study
1, correlations that differ by more than . 15 are generally statis-
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tically different. Specific tests are available from Cynthia Lee.)
The bottom half of Table 4 shows partial correlations be-
tween self-efficacy and the outcome measures, controlling for
assigned goal. Note that the underlying pattern of correlations
is remarkably similar, although differences among the corre-
lations are not as pronounced.
Discussion
These two studies demonstrate that the five self-efficacy oper-
ationalizations are highly correlated. Of the five operationaliza-
tions of self-efficacy, the measures with respect to multiple per-
formance levels (self-efficacy strength, self-efficacy magnitude,
and the two composite measures) showed higher convergent and
predictive validities than the one-item task-specific confidence
rating. These relationships appeared in both studies. On the ba-
sis of these two empirical studies and the increased information
in the other four measures, we thus recommend that researchers
refrain from using single-item measures of confidence as in-
dexes of self-efficacy. Also, the self-efficacy magnitude and
strength measures appear to have generally weaker predictive
validities and correlations than the self-efficacy composites
have. Of the two composite measures, Self-Efficacy Composite
1 showed slightly stronger relationships with personal goals in
Study 2; but in most cases across both studies, the strength of
the relationships of these composite measures with antecedents
and outcomes were similar. Because the operationalization of
these two composites was consistent with Bandura's (1986) con-
ceptualization (incorporating both magnitude and strength in-
formation) and because Composite 1 is less cumbersome to pp-
erationalize, this may be the measure of choice.
It is interesting to speculate why the one-item confidence rat-
ing was more highly related to positive affectivity (and past per-
formance) than were the other self-efficacy measures. The con-
fidence rating asks about confidence "that you will obtain the
score that you are trying for in your next exam." As one re-
viewer noted, this may well be interpreted as an item assessing
confidence in outcome expectancy rather than self-efficacy. Ac-
cording to Bandura (1986), self-efficacy is a judgment of one's
capability to accomplish a certain level of performance,
whereas an outcome expectation is a judgment of the likely con-
sequence such behavior will produce.
It is also suggestive that outcome expectancy does not occur
independent of an individual's past performance. Notice also
that Watson et aJ. (J 988) assessed their positive affectivity mea-
sure by using a past-tense orientation. So both positive affec-
tivity and past performance differ from the goal measures and
present performance, with the latter having a forward-looking
orientation. Bandura (1986) maintained that "people see out-
comes as contingent on the adequacy of their performances, and
care about those outcomes, that they rely on self-judged efficacy
in deciding which courses of action to pursue" (p. 392). This
distinction between past- and future-oriented measures may, in
part, explain the unexpected large correlations of the confi-
dence rating with the positive affectivity and past performance
measures.
Bandura (1986) noted that a self-efficacy measure and the
behavioral test with which it is being correlated should be ad-
ministered closely in time. In Study 1, self-efficacy was assessed
after students had taken their first examination but before they
had received their grade. In Study 2, self-efficacy was assessed
after the practice trials of a brainstorming task. However, be-
cause of the nature of the brainstorming task, immediate objec-
tive feedback on task performance was available in Study 2; this
was less so in Study 1, because subjects had not yet received
their examination scores. According to Kazdin (1978), in the
case of Study 2, completing self-efficacy items (especially when
the items are hierarchically presented) may sensitize subjects to
the number of uses they should list on the brainstorming task.
Alternatively, task performance (listing uses of an object) may
alter subsequent self-efficacy perceptions because these two
measures are administered at nearly the same time. Thus, the
net effect of this measurement context (self-efficacy items are
framed in performance levels) and procedure may result in the
observed higher correlations between self-efficacy and perfor-
mance in Study 2. Also note that, in Study 1, the self-efficacy
subscales developed by Wood and Locke (1987) were not di-
rectly framed in performance levels (i.e., levels of examination
scores) but in terms of task requirements essential for successful
class performance (e.g., class concentration, memorization, un-
derstanding, and note taking). Because the level of self-efficacy
was inferred from a different set of items than those used for
behavioral or performance assessment, the correlation between
self-efficacy and behavioral performance would decline. Thus,
in addition to the timing of self-efficacy assessment, the mea-
surement context and content of self-efficacy are also critical
and deserve closer attention from researchers.
In summary, it appears that there is convergent and predictive
validity across different types of self-efficacy measures and
different performance contexts. The composite self-efficacy op-
erationalizations are consistent with Bandura's (1986) defini-
tion and conceptualization, and the two present studies provide
empirical evidence that these may be the measures of choice.
Future studies should replicate our results in longitudinal field
settings where performance feedback is perhaps less accurate,
or less timely, and where performance measures are often less
quantifiable. Not all recent operationalizations of self-efficacy
are equal. We suggest that researchers consider using and re-
searching the relatively more information-rich (composite)
measures in future empirical settings.
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 SELF-EFFICACY MEASURES
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Received March 9, 1992
Revision received October 28, 1993
Accepted October 29, 1993