Self-efficacy or intelligence to predict academic or professional success?

ABSTRACT Introduction: The growing challenges of medical education have motivated research with medical students and doctors in training. The self-efficacy scale assesses the individual’s intrinsic aspects, ability to achieve goals, overcome challenges, and keep motivated to attain results. The perception of physicians’ self-efficacy in training can guide learning and teaching strategies. Objective: The study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties and, particularly, a factorial structure of the Higher Education Self-Efficacy Scale in medical students and resident in Pediatrics. Method: The study sample included 269 participants, among them 5th-semester and 6th-year medical students from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and 1st and 2nd -year pediatric residents of various institutions in Belo Horizonte. All participants performed self-efficacy assessment using the Higher Education Self-Efficacy Scale. Result: the data were submitted to Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation that revealed seven components. These new domains were named: self-regulating, learning, accomplishing, evaluating, integrating, expanding and participating. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranged from 0,70 to 0,86 in every dimension. The explained total variance was 63,7%. Conclusion: The Higher Education Self-Efficacy Scale proved to be appropriate for Medical Education but revealed seven domains rather than the five proposed, probably due to the particularities related to Medical Education.