General Self-Efficacy Scale GSE
General Self-Efficacy Scale GSE overview
Creator and Context
The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) is a 10 item measure of a person's belief in their ability to cope with difficulty and solve problems.
It was developed by Matthias Jerusalem and Ralf Schwarzer, originally in German in 1979 and reduced to ten items in 1981. It has been adapted into more than thirty languages and validated across twenty five countries.
It is free to use with acknowledgement of the source.
Presenting Conditions
The GSE measures generalised self efficacy: the stable belief that one can handle novel or difficult demands and cope with adversity.
It is deliberately unidimensional and has no subscales.
Administration
Self administered. Each item is rated Not at all true (1), Hardly true (2), Moderately true (3) or Exactly true (4). It is a trait measure with no recall window.
Desired Audience
Adolescents and adults in the general population, validated from around age 12 upward. It is not condition specific.
Self efficacy predicts whether a person will actually attempt the things treatment asks of them. It is one of the better predictors of engagement, and ten items is a small price to pay for knowing it.
Considerations
There is no cut off. The author states explicitly that people should not be categorised as high or low self efficacious and that no cut off score exists. Any threshold presented elsewhere is a misuse the author disowns.
It is a trait measure and is comparatively insensitive to short term change.
Mean scores differ substantially between countries, so raw cross cultural comparison is unsafe.
If you want to predict a specific behaviour, the author advises using a specific self efficacy scale instead.
How to score the General Self-Efficacy Scale GSE
Conducting the assessment
The person rates ten items from 1 to 4. A score can still be computed if no more than three of the ten items are missing.
Interpretation
Items are summed to give a total from 10 to 40. Higher scores indicate greater generalised self efficacy.
There are no cut offs and no severity bands. Interpretation is normative, against published reference means, or based on change.
Across a 25 country sample of 19,120 people, the mean total was 29.55 with a standard deviation of 5.32.
Clinical Considerations
Do not band the score. Compare it to a reference mean, or to the person's own earlier score.
Read it as context for engagement, not as a symptom measure.
Do not compare raw scores across cultures.
General Self-Efficacy Scale GSE use cases
Measuring generalised self efficacy in adults and adolescents
Understanding likely engagement with treatment and self management
Research across health, education and occupational settings
Category
General Well-being
Research Summary
Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (1995). Generalized Self-Efficacy scale. In J. Weinman, S. Wright, & M. Johnston (Eds.), Measures in health psychology: A user's portfolio (pp. 35 to 37). Windsor: NFER-NELSON.
Scholz, U., Gutierrez-Dona, B., Sud, S., & Schwarzer, R. (2002). Is general self efficacy a universal construct? Psychometric findings from 25 countries. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 18(3), 242 to 251.
Luszczynska, A., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). The General Self-Efficacy Scale: Multicultural validation studies. Journal of Psychology, 139(5), 439 to 457.
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