Can I Change the World? Assessing Individual Self-Efficacy Beliefs About Ability to Change Society

• In Event: Evaluating the Psychometric Quality of Self-Efficacy Measures With Diverse Item-Analysis Methods

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
The belief in one’s ability to change their social and political environment is often described in terms of political efficacy. Political efficacy has been studied for six decades because educators and political scientist both believe it is a predictor for political participation and civic engagement.
Since 1954, African Americans (adults and children) have been documented as having lower political efficacy than their white counterparts (Campbell et. al, 1954; Mokken, 1961; Abramson, 1972; Rodgers, 1973; Liebshutz & Niemi, 1974; Button, 1974). Despite the fact blacks have lower political efficacy, they are sometimes found to have participation levels are higher than their white counterparts; in other cases, political efficacy has proven to be a valid predictor for all other ethnicities except African Americans (Bobo, 1990; Shingles, 1981; Leighly, 1999). The literature on black political efficacy raises questions about its predictive validity as a construct for black people.
The purpose of this study is twofold: 1) to examine the psychometric properties of the researcher constructed scale, social catalyst efficacy, and internal political efficacy scale (Neimi et al, 1991), and 2) to determine how the scales function differently among ethnic groups.

Methods
An online survey containing Social Catalyst Efficacy scale (SCE) and Internal Political Efficacy scale (IPE) was administered and data were collected from 180 adults (111 African American, 56 white, see demographic information in Table 1). The SCES is a 10-item, 10-point Likert-type scale. The IPE scale is a 4-item, 4-point Likert-type scale.

Data Analysis
Using SPSS 18, to determine the reliability of each scale, I computed Cronbach’s alpha for each scale and for each two major subgroups (see Table 2). To establish convergent validity, I computed the Pearson R Coefficient between SCES, IPE, and a behavioral scale, critical praxis (CP), which measures the frequency of involvement in social and political engagement (see Table 3). To understand the underlying structure of each scale, I ran EFA on each of the scales disaggregated by largest two ethnic groups in the sample.

Preliminary Results
IPE and SCE are internally consistent with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .799-.892 for IPE and .875-.916 for SCE. On average African Americans have lower internal political efficacy (t(165)=2.522, p=.013, two-tailed), and have higher SCE than whites (t(165)=-3.149, p=.002, two-tailed). The EFA Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure for sampling adequacy was .789 for African Americans and .842 for whites. Two factors emerged in the EFA for SCE for both groups titled: actions and outcomes (see Tables 4&5). However, it seems the three items load on the factors differently by ethnicity. IPE was found to have only one factor, though the amount of variance accounted by that factor differed among ethnic groups. College students will be recruited to increase the sample size, for validation of these findings.

Significance
Preliminary results illustrate that SCE and IPE may explain something different about individual beliefs in the ability to change society. In a world where participation is waning, it is critical to have valid measure of what people believe they can accomplish.

Author

• Brandi Nicole Hinnant-Crawford, Emory University