Secondary School Students’ Chemistry Self-Efficacy: Its Importance, Measurement, and Sources - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 195

items are shown in Table 1 . In a pilot study, Dalgety et al. ( 2003 ) conducted an
exploratory factor analysis of the data collected by the 17 items and yielded four
factors: learning chemistry theory self-efficacy, applying chemistry theory self-
efficacy, learning chemistry skills self-efficacy, and applying science skills self-
efficacy. However, exploratory factor analyses of data from a validation study
generated only one factor. Therefore, further research is needed to investigate the
factor structure of the 17-item instrument.
In Turkey, ¸ apa Aydin and Uzuntiryaki ( 2009 ) developed a 16-item high school
chemistry self-efficacy scale. Their sample consisted of 362 tenth-grade chemistry
students. Confirmatory factor analysis of the data resulted in satisfactory fit with
two factors. The first factor concerned chemistry self-efficacy for cognitive skills
(10 items, Cronbach

beliefs in their ability to
use some general intellectual skills in chemistry. Sample items are shown in
Table 1 . The second factor concerned self-efficacy for the chemistry laboratory
(6 items, Cronbach

s ʱ ¼ 0.90). It refers to the students

' '

beliefs in their ability to
accomplish some generic laboratory tasks including skills in both cognitive and
psychomotor domains. The correlation between these two factors was 0.61. In a
related study, Uzuntiryaki and ¸ apa Aydin ( 2009 ) deleted one item from the high
school chemistry self-efficacy scale and added six items to form the college
chemistry self-efficacy scale. They used confirmatory factor analysis and found
three rather than two dimensions underlying their scale: self-efficacy for cognitive
skills,

s ʱ ¼ 0.92). It refers to the students

' '

self-efficacy for psychomotor skills, and self-efficacy for everyday

applications.

3.2 Measurement of Topic-Specific Chemistry Self-Efficacy

Relatively fewer surveys have been constructed to measure topic-specific chemistry
self-efficacy. For example, in the USA, Merchant et al. ( 2012 ) made a good attempt
to construct specific questionnaire items to measure chemistry self-efficacy. They
investigated the impact of a 3D desktop virtual reality environment on the learning
of the valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) theory in an introductory
chemistry class. The sample consisted of 204 undergraduates enrolled in a chem-
istry course at a university. They constructed 15 items to measure the students

self-
efficacy for learning VSEPR theory and asked the students to rate each item on a
5-point Likert scale (from 1

'

strongly agree). Example
items are “I am confident I have the ability to learn the material taught about
VSEPR theory,” “I am confident I can do well on the exam questions about VSEPR
theory,” “I can characterize a molecule or ion as obeying or disobeying the octet
rule,” “I am confident I can do well on the lab experiment dealing with VSEPR
theory,” and “I am confident that I could explain the concepts on VSEPR theory
learned in this class to another person.” The data were of high reliability
(Cronbach

strongly disagree to 5

¼ ¼

0.93), and the confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit for
a one-factor model.

s ʱ ¼

'