Hope, self-efficacy, optimism, and academic achievement: Distinguishing constructs and levels of specificity in predicting college grade-point average

Abstract

Research shows that Snyder's (1994) goal-directed hope construct predicts college GPA. However, studies have documented relatively weak relationships between these variables, possibly because hope was measured regarding goals generally, not academic-specific goals. Additionally, most studies have not compared variance accounted for in GPA by hope relative to other expectancy constructs. In a cross-sectional sample of 89 college students, we administer the Hope Scale, Domain Specific Hope Scale (academic subscale), General Self-Efficacy Scale, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, Life Orientation Test-Revised (optimism), among others. We test a path-analytic model where academic-specific expectancies (e.g., academic hope, academic self-efficacy) have direct paths to GPA, and generalized expectancies (e.g., general hope, general self-efficacy) have paths to these academic-specific variables. A modified version of this hypothesized model demonstrated good fit. Generalized hope predicted academic-specific hope and academic self-efficacy, both of which then predicted GPA. Optimism and general self-efficacy did not predict academic-specific expectancy variables nor GPA.