Guidance students\' self-efficacy in science: the construction and validation of a scale

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Abstract

Based on Bandura's suggestions on how to measure self-efficacy in different academic areas, a special scale for self-efficacy in science was constructed in order to measure this construct in Guidance school students in Iran. To validate this instrument, a sample of 319 juniors was purposefully selected to which the constructed measure was administered. The instrument consists of three sub-areas of efficacy in problem solving, science use, and science class. The validity of the instrument was measured to be adequate through the correlation between its scores and students' academic achievement scores. Its internal consistency was measured to be in the range of 0.88 to 0.96. The reliability of the scale was measured through test-retest procedure to be from 0.82 to 0.93. Considering the fact that this instrument was developed within the local setting, one can use it in all Iranian educational and psychological studies.

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