This article aims to explore how self‐efficacy is related to academic research activities and how intra‐culturally relevant factors may play a role in self‐efficacy in the context of higher education in Beijing. In particular, relationships of self‐efficacy for research with research productivity and idiocentrism‐allocentrism are to be examined.
A survey was administered to academics in ten randomly selected universities in Beijing and generated 296 valid questionnaires. Data were analysed using factor analysis and multiple regression.
Gender and discipline are identified as predictors of self‐efficacy. Specifically, female academics reported lower levels of self‐efficacy for research than males. Academics in the social sciences reported lower levels of self‐efficacy for research than those in the natural sciences. Moreover, relationships are also found between self‐efficacy for research and idiocentrism‐allocentrism.
The study makes an extensive investigation of self‐efficacy theory, originally developed in Western contexts, in an Eastern culture and provides evidence that intra‐cultural and demographic factors play substantial roles in research self‐efficacy.
