Psychometric properties of the Chinese General Self-efficacy Scale (CGSE) among soon-to-be-aged adults

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Soon-to-be-aged (STBA) adults are in their transitional stage from adulthood to their later life and are facing tremendous and a wide range of variety of stressful situations due to work or retirement. Understanding STBA adults’ broad optimistic self-beliefs helps to structure health promotion interventions that motivate them to better equip themselves for the transition. The Chinese version of the General Self-Efficacy (CGSE) scale has been tested and shown to be valid for use among adolescents and adults from clinical populations but yet no study on community-dwelling Chinese STBA samples. This aim of the study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese General Self-Efficacy Scale and gender invariance in the factor structure of the scale. METHOD: A convenient sample of Chinese STBA adults (n = 695) surveyed in 28 non-government organizations in Hong Kong from March to May 2005. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the factor structure and gender invariance of the scale. RESULTS: There was an acceptable internal consistency of the CGSE scale. The proposed factor structure of the CGSE scale provided an excellent fit to the overall data. The factor structure was held equally well for males and females, and that both genders demonstrated an equivalent pattern of factor loadings. CONCLUSION: The CGSE scale is a reliable and valid scale and both genders responded to the scale using the same underlying framework and metric; thus should be used with confidence in non-clinical Chinese STBA adult samples.