Hope and General Self-efficacy: Two Measures of the Same Construct?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to test the extent to which hope measure is equivalent to general self-efficacy measure. Questionnaire data on these two constructs and other external variables were collected from 199 Chinese college students. The factor analytic results suggested that hope and self-efficacy items measured the same construct. The unidimensional model combining hope items and GSE items fit the data as well as the bidimensional model, indicating that their corresponding items measured the same underlying construct. Further analyses showed that hope and GSE did not correlate with external variables differently in a systematic manner. Most of these correlational differences were non-significant and negligible. These findings suggested that the literatures studying GSE and hope could be considered to be integrated and that researchers need to recognize and acknowledge the conceptual and operational similarities among these constructs in the literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Factor analysis
• general self-efficacy
• hope

Author Notes

Dr. Mingming Zhou is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Macau. She researches achievement motivation, academic emotion and personal identity in the context of learning. One of her major contributions to the field of educational psychology is the development of computer tracing methods to capture learning processes on the fly.

Dr. Chester Chun Seng Kam is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Macau. His research focuses on the use of reverse-keyed items in survey research, and organizational behaviours in educational contexts. He has examined the role of implicit person theory and organizational commitment on employee outcomes.

Notes

¹ The original English version of the GSE scale can be found at http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/health/engscal.htm. The Chinese version of the scale can be found at http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/∼health/self/schwa_baessler1997.pdf.

² The original English version of the Hope Scale can be found at http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/hopescale.pdf. The Chinese version of the scale can be found at http://webpages.uncc.edu/∼cwang15/Sun,%20Ng,%20Wang,%202012.pdf.