Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of the General Self-Efficacy Scale among Indian University Students

General self-efficacy reflects an individual’s overall belief in their ability to successfully cope with a wide range of challenging situations and accomplish desired goals. As self-efficacy is a dynamic construct so the Scale which measures this construct needs continuous validation across different cultural settings and in different time periods. Therefore, the present study aimed to validate GSES through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis among a sample of Indian university students. A cross-sectional design was employed, and data were collected from 350 university students using convenience sampling. The findings indicated that the GSES has good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .839; McDonald’s ω = .838), with corrected item-total correlations ranging from .437 to .622. EFA produced a single factor with an eigenvalue of 4.128 that explained 41.28% of the total variance, supporting a unidimensional structure that is consistent with the original scale. CFA further confirmed the one-factor model, demonstrating an acceptable model fit (χ²/df = 2.776, GFI = .946, TLI = .913, CFI = .932, RMSEA = .071). Composite reliability was satisfactory (CR = .825). Overall, the findings support the General Self-Efficacy Scale as a reliable and valid unidimensional instrument for assessing general self-efficacy among Indian university students, making it suitable for use in psychological research and educational settings.