Subject-matter specificity of self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, interests, and goals: Implications for the social-cognitive model

This study was designed to investigate the academic-subject-matter domain s pecificity of self-efficacy, interests, outcome expectations, and goals. Fo ur major subject-matter domains were selected to investigate this issue: ma th/science, art, social studies, and English. To examine this question, 16 instruments were constructed to measure the 4 concepts across the 4 subject domains. An analytical strategy similar to that used in multitrait multime thod studies was used. Using this strategy, a series of factor models was t ested for fit to the data using confirmatory factor analytic procedures. Re sults indicated that a factor solution that accommodated both distinct subj ect matters and distinct constructs provided the best fit to the data, supp orting the existence of the constructs of academic self-efficacy, interests , outcome expectancies, and goals that are specific to each subject-matter domain.