Examination of Parental Self-Efficacy and Their Beliefs About the Outcomes of Their Parenting Practices

In this study, we examined parental self-efficacy (PSE) in light of Bandura’s distinction between efficacy expectations and outcome expectations, and their links to parenting practices. We used a sample of 968 parents of children aged 11 to 18 years and examined the factor structure of items measuring PSE and parents’ outcome expectations, as well as the links between these two cognitive aspects and parenting practices. The results suggested that PSE and our measure of parents’ outcome expectations constituted two distinct factors and were not part of the same overall factor. Additionally, the analyses showed that PSE might be seen as a unidimensional construct with multidimensional aspects and was more strongly linked to parenting practices than were parents’ outcome expectations. In general, this study offers a comprehensive model of two different parental cognitive mechanisms as antecedents of parenting behaviors in different developmental periods.