General self-efficacy scale
Bandura (1977) put forward the theory of self-efficacy based on the
theory of social cognition to describe the ability of an individual to
complete a task or accomplish something under a specific situation. This
theory has received extensive attention in the area of psychology and
education, and its positive effects and influence have been tested.
There are a lot of studies have paid attention to the application and
effects of self-efficacy theory (Bandura et al., 2001; Schutte &
Malouff, 2016). Self-efficacy directly affects learners’ learning
cognition, learning motivation, and learning effect. It can be used to
investigate and analyze learners’ meta-cognition, feelings, and
experience of web-based learning, and it also affected learners’
learning motivation, preferences, and perception of web-based learning
tools.
As the importance of self-efficacy and the particularity of the COVID-19
pandemic, learners’ self-efficacy of web-based learning during the
pandemic is unknown. Analyzing learners’ web-based learning
self-efficacy could be a benefit to understand learners’ learning
behavior, condition, and problems. Refer to the General self-efficacy
scale (GSES, General self-efficacy scale) of Schwarzer & Jerusalem
(1995). Zhang & Schwarzer (1995) modified and designed the Chinese
version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES-C), which has been
widely used and has shown good reliability and validity in the research
field. Several studies have shown that the reliability of GSES-C is 0.76
(Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) (Sun, Zhong, Xin & Kang, 2018), the
first reliability is 0.83, and the second reliability is 0.91 (Wang et
al., 2001). This study uses GSES-C to investigate learners’
self-efficacy during the pandemic to figure out the effect of the
external environment. The internal consistency of the questionnaire is
0.939 (Cronbach’s alpha), which indicates that the scale tool has high
reliability.