Educational self-efficacy scale

Educational self-efficacy is a student’s general sense that they can achieve academic outcomes. You will note that the 5-item sample scale here measures the overall sense that students have that they can achieve academic outcomes, and is not grounded within a specific discipline or profession. If you are interested in examining students’ self-efficacy in their discipline or profession, please see the Self-efficacy in discipline scale.

This is a recommended, validated, and reliable scale for measuring educational self-efficacy. The scale below has been adapted from the Harvard-Panorama Student Perception Survey and aligns with the best practices outlined in our best practices for questionnaire design.

For various reasons, you may wish to amend this scale for your own evaluation purposes. We have provided guidance below to ensure that your scale follows good practices in questionnaire design and remains valid. Before you adapt this questionnaire further, please take a look at our FAQs and guidance on questionnaires.