Abstract
Due to globalization, an increasing need for advanced speaking skills, and the interest aroused by English public speaking (EPS) competitions, EPS is increasingly important, especially among university students. Although self-efficacy is strongly associated with performance, no psychometrically sound instruments to measure EPS self-efficacy among college-level learners have been developed to date. Grounded in Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the present study established validity (content and construct) and reliability (scale and item) evidence for two new instruments: the EPS Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES) and the Sources of EPS Self-Efficacy Scale (SSES). Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in Sample A (n = 406) confirmed the hypothesized EPS competency-related self-efficacy gaged by ESES. Results in Sample B (n = 270) supported four sources of EPS self-efficacy as gaged by SSES. Correlation analyses in Sample C (n = 263) contributed to the refinement of self-efficacy theory within the EPS domain. The two new measures will help practitioners gage their students’ EPS self-efficacy and its development and enable future investigations of the role EPS self-efficacy plays in language learning.
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Notes
The reason we situate our study within the broader field of L2 acquisition is that the measure validation methodology and reporting practices used in our study are informed by and are applicable to L2 research across other topics and settings (see Derrick 2016).
We acknowledge that the GFI index may be less frequently recommenced for use because it could be affected the sample size; the CFI index, in turn, could be affected by model complexity. Thus, anticipating broad uses of our measures—including with varied sample sizes and levels of model complexities—and building on precedent (Teng and Zhang 2016; Vafaee et al. 2017), we chose to use both fit indices as a more stringent criteria for assessing model fit.
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Zhang, X., Ardasheva, Y., Egbert, J. et al. Building Assessments for Self-Efficacy in English Public Speaking in China. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 28, 411–420 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-019-00441-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-019-00441-9