The generality of academic self-efficacy judgments was examined among 588 high school students who rated their confidence for problem solving. A first-order model with a separate self-efficacy factor for each school subject displayed the best fit, so that verbal and quantitative self-efficacy were more meaningful than general academic…

The relative contribution of students' capability to perceive structural versus surface similarity on their motivation transfer was studied. It was hypothesized that surface similarity would lead to greater transfer of self-efficacy among tasks due to its readily perceptible nature. More specifically, it was hypothesized that the perception of…

The degree of and the cognitive basis for the generalizability of academic self-efficacy were examined among 588 high school students from the greater Los Angeles (California) area. Students' self-efficacy perceptions clearly generalized beyond boundaries of specific tasks and also of specific school subjects, albeit to a lesser degree. There was…

The internal/external (I/E) frames of reference model proposed by H. Marsh (1986, 1990) points to the relativistic nature of academic self-concept formation. It argues that students compare their own academic ability to that of their peers in an external comparison, and they compare their own verbal skills to their mathematics skills in an…