The Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale

Abstract

The Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale (CSSES) measures". . . the individual's confidence in his or her own ability to make clinically significant contributions to the community through service" (Reeb et al., p. 48). Three studies reported in this article replicate and extend past CSSES research. With regard to reliability, results replicate past research in demonstrating internal consistency and temporal consistency. Convergent validity was demonstrated by the finding that, as hypothesized, the CSSES correlated moderately with a measure of general self-efficacy. As hypothesized, the correlation between the CSSES and a measure of social desirability was low in magnitude and non-significant, demonstrating discriminant validity. Regarding gender differences, females tended to score somewhat higher than males on the CSSES. With respect to construct validity, CSSES scores changed in the hypothesized direction in response to an intervention. While past CSSES research focused on college students, one study reported in this paper shows that the CSSES is useful in studying adolescents, including those with psychosocial adjustment problems.