Psychometric evaluation of dietary self-efficacy and outcome expectation scales in female college freshmen.
Check and re-word barrier items before you use dietary self-efficacy scales with college women.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Van Hanegem et al. (2014) checked if two short questionnaires about healthy eating really measure what they claim.
The team gave the surveys to female college freshmen and ran a factor analysis.
They wanted to know which items hang together and which ones confuse the picture.
What they found
The positive-outcome and motivation parts of the scales held up well.
Barrier and negative-outcome items crossed over and did not load cleanly.
The authors say those tricky items need re-wording before you use them in practice.
How this fits with other research
Parvizi et al. (2026) did the same kind of factor work on the Persian BPFAS and got clean five-factor child and three-factor parent solutions.
Their feeding scale worked across cultures, while E et al. found parts of the dietary scale did not.
Falcomata et al. (2012) also looked at diet, but used digital photos instead of self-report.
They got high reliability with photos, hinting that pictures may dodge the wording problems E et al. flagged.
Why it matters
If you give college women a dietary self-efficacy scale, skim the barrier items first.
Swap or re-phrase the ones that cross-load so your data stay clean.
This quick edit saves time later and keeps treatment decisions based on solid numbers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Lifestyle interventions commonly measure psychosocial beliefs as precursors to positive behavior change, but often overlook questionnaire validation. This can affect measurement accuracy if the survey has been developed for a different population, as differing behavioral influences may affect instrument validity. The present study aimed to explore psychometric properties of self-efficacy and outcome expectation scales-originally developed for younger children-in a population of female college freshmen (N = 268). Exploratory principal component analysis was used to investigate underlying data patterns and assess validity of previously published subscales. Composite scores for reliable subscales (Cronbach's α ≥ .70) were calculated to help characterize self-efficacy and outcome expectation beliefs in this population. The outcome expectation factor structure clearly comprised of positive (α = .81-.90) and negative outcomes (α = .63-.67). The self-efficacy factor structure included themes of motivation and effort (α = .75-.94), but items pertaining to hunger and availability cross-loaded often. Based on cross-loading patterns and low Cronbach's alpha values, respectively, self-efficacy items regarding barriers to healthy eating and negative outcome expectation items should be refined to improve reliability. Composite scores suggested that eating healthfully was associated with positive outcomes, but self-efficacy to do so was lower. Thus, dietary interventions for college students may be more successful by including skill-building activities to enhance self-efficacy and increase the likelihood of behavior change.
Behavior modification, 2014 · doi:10.1177/0145445514543467