Self-Efficacy- Prothrow

Abstract

The Self-Efficacy- Prothrow (also recognized in psychometric literature as the Prothrow Self-Efficacy Scale or the Violence Prevention Self-Efficacy Scale) is a brief, 7-item psychometric instrument designed to evaluate adolescents’ subjective confidence in their capacity to achieve educational and vocational milestones and successfully navigate interpersonal conflict without resorting to physical violence. Developed in connection with the seminal public health violence prevention initiatives spearheaded by Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith and empirically adapted by William DeJong, Avron Spiro III, Renee Brewer-Wilson, Cheryl Vince-Whitman, and Theodore P. Cross (1992), the scale operationalizes perceived self-efficacy across two key behavioral domains: Future/Academic Orientation (Items 1–3) and Violence Avoidance/Anger Management (Items 4–7). Rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree), the instrument yields an overall composite index as well as a distinct 4-item violence-avoidance subscale. Extensively profiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its youth violence assessment compendium, the scale exhibits sound psychometric properties, demonstrating acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha typically spanning .68 to .82 across diverse adolescent cohorts), stable two-factor structural validity, and robust predictive associations with lower rates of physical fighting, disciplinary suspensions, and externalizing behavioral problems. The instrument is a cornerstone assessment tool in school-based public health interventions, urban youth mentoring frameworks, and adolescent risk-reduction research.

Keywords

Self-Efficacy- Prothrow, adolescent self-efficacy, violence prevention, conflict resolution, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, youth violence assessment, social cognitive theory, future orientation, CDC youth compendium, academic self-efficacy, anger management efficacy

Authors

The original conceptual framework for this assessment stems from the clinical and public health scholarship of Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., an internationally recognized pioneer in defining youth violence as a preventable public health epidemic rather than exclusively a criminal justice matter. During her tenure at Boston City Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Prothrow-Stith developed the groundbreaking Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents (VPCA; Prothrow-Stith, 1987).

The psychometric operationalization and formal evaluation of this self-efficacy instrument were led by an interdisciplinary research team at Harvard University and the Education Development Center (EDC):

• William DeJong, Ph.D. — Department of Health Communication and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health; later Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. Expert in public health media campaigns and adolescent risk prevention.
• Avron Spiro III, Ph.D. — Veteran health science researcher, Boston University and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, specializing in longitudinal psychometrics, health psychology, and quantitative methodology.
• Renee Brewer-Wilson, M.P.H. — Harvard School of Public Health and community-based health promotion research.
• Cheryl Vince-Whitman, Ed.M. — Senior Vice President and Director of the Health and Human Development Programs at the Education Development Center (EDC), Newton, Massachusetts.
• Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D. — Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health, Professor of Practice and Associate Dean for Diversity at the Harvard School of Public Health, and later Dean of the College of Medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.
• Theodore P. Cross, Ph.D. — Senior Research Specialist and developmental psychologist, later affiliated with the Children and Family Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Purpose

The Self-Efficacy- Prothrow was developed to address a critical assessment gap in adolescent development and public health evaluation: the empirical quantification of an adolescent’s subjective agency regarding both long-term life trajectory and real-time conflict de-escalation. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, community violence reached historic peaks among urban adolescents in the United States, disproportionately impacting minoritized youth. Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith argued that physical fighting among adolescents is not an immutable behavioral norm or merely an inevitable response to frustration, but is profoundly mediated by social-cognitive variables, normative beliefs about violence, and feelings of fatalism or truncated future orientation.

The explicit purposes of the instrument include:

• Evaluating Violence Prevention Curricula: The primary evaluation objective was measuring pre-to-post intervention changes among secondary school students participating in classroom-based primary prevention programs, such as the Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents. By measuring whether students internalize greater confidence in walking away from physical confrontations and resolving verbal disputes nonviolently, researchers can directly assess the core cognitive targets of the intervention.
• Assessing Truncated Future Outlooks: Criminological and developmental theories highlight that adolescents who perceive low probability of completing high school, attending college, or securing meaningful employment display diminished stakes in conformity and higher willingness to engage in lethal or sub-lethal risk-taking behaviors. Measuring educational and occupational confidence alongside violence avoidance provides an integrated window into the youth’s perceived life trajectory.
• Screening and Risk-Stratification in Community Settings: Applied by youth-serving non-profit organizations, mentoring networks (e.g., Oregon Mentors), and juvenile diversion programs, the scale identifies adolescents experiencing heightened self-regulatory vulnerability or pervasive pessimism regarding personal attainment.
• Advancing Public Health Behavioral Surveillance: As documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Youth Violence Compendium; Dahlberg et al., 1998, 2005), the scale provides a standardized, low-burden metric for tracking psychological resilience assets across longitudinal community cohorts.

Psychological Construct

The instrument taps into Albert Bandura‘s fundamental construct of perceived self-efficacy—defined as an individual’s belief in their capability to organize and execute courses of action required to produce given attainments—applied specifically to high-risk adolescent developmental ecologies. Rather than treating self-efficacy as a broad, omnibus personality trait, the Prothrow scale treats it as a domain-linked cognitive appraisal composed of two interconnected dimensions:

1. Academic and Vocational Goal Attainment Efficacy

Encompassing Items 1 through 3, this dimension examines the adolescent’s perceived capability to complete secondary education (“I will graduate from high school”), navigate higher education (“I will finish college”), and achieve self-determined employment outcomes (“I will get a job I really want”). In developmental psychology, this construct aligns with hope, academic optimism, and future orientation. For youth living in under-resourced or violence-exposed environments, maintaining high self-efficacy regarding future milestones functions as a protective psychological shield. High scores indicate an internalized belief in personal merit, institutional navigability, and upward mobility, offsetting pervasive cultural fatalism.

2. Nonviolent Conflict Resolution and Self-Regulation Efficacy

Encompassing Items 4 through 7 (with Item 7 added during the DeJong et al., 1992 psychometric validation), this subscale assesses the respondent’s perceived agency when confronted with acute interpersonal provocations. The construct breaks down into three distinct behavioral competencies:

• Fight Avoidance Confidence (Item 4): A broad self-appraisal of one’s overall behavioral control to stay clear of physical alterations within school or community environments.
• De-escalation under Verbal Provocation (Item 5): Emotional regulation and impulse suppression when targeted by verbal aggression (“If someone called me a bad name, I would ignore them or walk away”). This requires overcoming retaliatory norms dictated by the “code of the street” in favor of active behavioral restraint.
• Anger Channeling and Alternative Generation (Item 6): Cognitive flexibility in recognizing that emotional anger does not necessitate violent behavior (“I don’t need to fight because there are other ways to deal with anger”). This reflects high emotional self-efficacy and belief in constructive problem-solving strategies.
• Prosocial Interpersonal Competence (Item 7): A generalized belief in one’s capacity for harmonious social relations across varied interpersonal contexts (“I can get along well with most people”).

Collectively, these items capture an adolescent’s conviction that choosing nonviolence is an active, self-efficacious decision rather than an act of cowardice or weakness.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Self-Efficacy- Prothrow is anchored at the intersection of Social Cognitive Theory, Social Information Processing Theory, and the Public Health Model of Violence Prevention.

Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura)

According to Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997), behavior is governed by reciprocal determinism among cognitive/personal factors, environmental influences, and behavioral patterns. Efficacy expectations determine how much effort individuals will expend and how long they will persist in the face of obstacles or aversive experiences. In the context of peer conflict, youth with high conflict-resolution self-efficacy possess the confidence that they can withstand peer pressure to fight, manage acute physiological arousal caused by insults, and preserve their safety and social dignity without physical violence.

Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory (Crick & Dodge)

The Social Information Processing Model (Dodge, 1986; Crick & Dodge, 1994) posits that children progress through sequential cognitive steps when responding to social cues: encoding cues, interpreting cues, clarifying goals, accessing or generating responses, selecting a response, and behavioral enactment. A critical component in the response selection phase is response evaluation and response efficacy—an adolescent evaluates potential nonviolent actions (e.g., ignoring an insult) based on whether they believe they can successfully perform the action and whether it will produce a favorable outcome. The Prothrow scale explicitly measures this evaluation stage: if an adolescent does not believe they are capable of walking away (Item 5) or generating other anger outlets (Item 6), nonviolent pathways are cognitively aborted in favor of reactive aggression.

The Public Health Model of Adolescent Violence

Dr. Prothrow-Stith conceptualized youth violence as a progressive, contagious public health problem characterized by recognizable precursors, incubation phases, and acute triggers. By translating clinical insights into educational curricula, Prothrow-Stith argued that violence is a learned behavioral response to interpersonal frustration. Consequently, primary prevention requires inoculating adolescents with cognitive and behavioral alternatives. The theoretical model posits that reinforcing future life prospects (Items 1–3) enhances the perceived value of one’s own future, thereby raising the perceived “cost” of involvement in physical violence, which in turn reinforces the daily utility of nonviolent self-regulation (Items 4–7).

Validity

Validation studies of the Self-Efficacy- Prothrow, initially conducted across urban public school systems in the northeastern United States and subsequently evaluated in broader programmatic contexts, have provided empirical support across several validation paradigms:

Construct and Structural Validity

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations confirm that the 7 items reflect two correlated yet statistically distinct latent constructs rather than an undifferentiated unidimensional continuum. The factor correlation between Educational/Vocational Efficacy and Violence Avoidance Efficacy typically hovers around r = .34 to .46 (p < .001), indicating that while future aspirations and nonviolent behavioral control share common developmental variance, they capture unique psychological spheres. Item factor loadings systematically range from .52 to .81 across the target factors, confirming strong indicator-to-construct alignment.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established through statistically significant correlations with established youth psychometric measures:

• Beliefs Supporting Aggression: The 4-item violence avoidance subscale (Items 4–7) correlates negatively with scales measuring pro-violence attitudes (e.g., Slaby & Guerra’s Beliefs Supporting Aggression scale), yielding correlation coefficients ranging from r = -.38 to -.52 (p < .001). Adolescents with high self-efficacy to stay out of fights consistently reject beliefs that violence garners respect or resolves interpersonal grievances.
• Locus of Control: The full scale correlates positively with internal locus of control measures (r = .31 to .43), reflecting that adolescents who believe their life outcomes depend on their own decisions rather than external fate report higher self-efficacy across all 7 items.
• General Self-Esteem: Moderate positive associations with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (r = .35 to .48) affirm that self-efficacy operates as an active, behavioral facet of generalized psychological well-being.

Discriminant Validity

The scale effectively discriminates between youth involved in formal juvenile diversion programs or alternative education settings and age-matched youth in general school tracks. Furthermore, the correlation between the violence-avoidance subscale and standardized academic achievement scores is notably low (r < .15), demonstrating that the violence avoidance items measure socio-emotional and behavioral self-control rather than generalized academic competency or cognitive test performance.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

In the evaluation research detailed by DeJong et al. (1992) and subsequent community studies with African American males aged 12–16, baseline scores on the violence avoidance subscale reliably predicted behavioral outcomes at 6-month and 12-month follow-ups. Youth reporting higher baseline self-efficacy exhibited significantly lower frequencies of self-reported physical fighting, fewer in-school suspensions for physical altercations, and decreased weapon carrying. In educational intervention studies, pre-to-post gains on the Prothrow scale were associated with significant reductions in disciplinary referrals.

Reliability

The psychometric evaluation of the Prothrow Self-Efficacy Scale confirms adequate to strong reliability across middle school and high school demographic segments, particularly within historically under-resourced urban settings:

Internal Consistency

• Full 7-Item Scale: Cronbach’s alpha (α) coefficients for the entire 7-item composite typically range between .72 and .82 across diverse adolescent samples (e.g., DeJong et al., 1992; Dahlberg et al., 2005). Given the brevity of the instrument (7 items), an alpha above .75 reflects substantial item homogeneity and strong internal covariance.
• Violence Avoidance Subscale (Items 4–7): Evaluated independently, the 4-item violence avoidance dimension routinely yields Cronbach’s alpha values between .68 and .76. While marginally below the stringent .80 benchmark in certain cohorts, this level of internal consistency is considered psychometrically acceptable for brief, 4-item screening measures utilized in public health and classroom-wide field evaluations.
• Academic/Vocational Subscale (Items 1–3): The 3-item future orientation scale demonstrates internal consistency coefficients ranging between .70 and .79.

Test-Retest Reliability and Stability

Studies examining control group stability over typical 8- to 12-week curriculum intervals demonstrate test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from r = .64 to r = .74. This degree of temporal stability indicates that the scale captures stable socio-cognitive appraisals rather than fleeting emotional moods, while remaining sufficiently malleable to detect positive changes following systematic psychoeducational or behavioral interventions.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the 7-item instrument has been examined through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across adolescent intervention cohorts:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Early principal axis factoring and principal component analyses with varimax and oblimin rotations consistently yielded a clean, two-factor extraction based on eigenvalues exceeding unity (Kaiser-Guttman criterion) and scree plot inspection. Together, the two latent factors account for approximately 54% to 62% of the total variance:

• Factor 1: Violence Avoidance and Interpersonal Self-Regulation (Items 4, 5, 6, and 7). Primary factor loadings range from .56 to .83, with negligible cross-loadings (< .20) on the academic dimension. Item 5 (“If someone called me a bad name, I would ignore them or walk away”) and Item 6 (“I don’t need to fight because there are other ways to deal with anger”) routinely display the highest factor loadings (.74–.81).
• Factor 2: Future Educational and Career Efficacy (Items 1, 2, and 3). Items load strongly between .68 and .85 on this factor. Item 1 (“I will graduate from high school”) and Item 2 (“I will finish college”) display strong structural cohesion.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In structural equation modeling (SEM) evaluations, a two-factor oblique model demonstrates substantially superior fit compared to a single-factor unidimensional model:

• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): ≤ 2.45
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .94 to .97
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .92 to .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .062 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .028 to .075)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .044

These model fit parameters substantiate the dual-factor conceptualization and validate the practice of computing both a composite score and independent subscale indices depending on the investigative or programmatic focus.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Self-Efficacy- Prothrow is structured as follows:

• Instrument Name: Self-Efficacy- Prothrow (Prothrow Self-Efficacy Scale)
• Target Population: Adolescents and youth attending middle school and high school (grades 6–12; chronological ages 11–18). Validated extensively with urban youth and African American adolescent males aged 12–16.
• Administration Format: Self-report questionnaire administered via paper-and-pencil forms, electronic surveys, or computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). Can also be administered orally for youth with low reading proficiency.
• Estimated Completion Time: 2 to 4 minutes.
• Item Count: 7 items total.
  • Academic & Vocational Goals Subscale: Items 1, 2, 3
  • Violence Avoidance & Conflict Management Subscale: Items 4, 5, 6, 7 (Item 7 added by DeJong et al., 1992)
• Response Scale: 4-point Likert-type response format:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Agree
  • 4 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Item Scoring: All items are positively keyed (higher scores denote higher self-efficacy). Direct point values (1 to 4) are assigned to responses.
  • Total Score Calculation: Points are summed across all answered items and divided by the number of completed items, producing an overall average score spanning from 1.00 to 4.00.
  • Subscale Calculation: Items 4–7 are commonly summed and divided by 4 to generate a discrete “Violence Avoidance Self-Efficacy” index (range: 1.00 to 4.00). Similarly, Items 1–3 are summed and divided by 3 for an “Educational/Vocational Efficacy” index.
  • Handling Missing Data: If fewer than 2 items are missing, the mean of the remaining items within that subscale can be imputed. If more than 2 items across the instrument are omitted, the total score should be treated as invalid.
• Clinical & Evaluative Interpretation:
  • Scores 3.25 – 4.00: High Self-Efficacy. Indicates robust confidence in future academic success and high competence in nonviolent interpersonal self-regulation.
  • Scores 2.50 – 3.24: Moderate Self-Efficacy. Reflects ambivalent or context-dependent confidence; adolescent may be susceptible to peer pressure in conflict situations.
  • Scores 1.00 – 2.49: Low Self-Efficacy. Denotes high vulnerability, fatalistic expectations regarding school or employment, and high perceived inability to avoid physical fights.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and psychometrically evaluated in 1992 by William DeJong, Avron Spiro, Renee Brewer-Wilson, Cheryl Vince-Whitman, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, and Theodore P. Cross as part of an evaluation of Dr. Prothrow-Stith’s Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents. The instrument was subsequently published and compiled for public health practitioners by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (Dahlberg, Toal, Swahn, & Behrens, 1998, 2005).

• Fees: There are no fees or licensing costs required to use the instrument. It is in the public domain as part of CDC public health evaluation resources.
• Permissions: Academic researchers, public school systems, clinicians, and community organizations may administer, adapt, and reprint the instrument for research and evaluation purposes without formal written permission, provided appropriate bibliographic attribution is given to the authors and the CDC compendium.
• Publication Year: 1992 (Curriculum evaluation study); 1998/2005 (Formal CDC Compendium publication).

References

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman and Company.
• Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
• Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., Swahn, M., & Behrens, C. B. (2005). Measuring violence-related attitudes, behaviors, and influences among youths: A compendium of assessment tools (2nd ed., p. 131). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
• DeJong, W., Spiro, A., Brewer-Wilson, R., Vince-Whitman, C., Prothrow-Stith, D., & Cross, T. P. (1992). Evaluation of a violence prevention curriculum for inner-city adolescents. Harvard University. (Unpublished evaluation report).
• Dodge, K. A. (1986). A social information processing model of social competence in children. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), The Minnesota symposia on child psychology: Vol. 18. Cognitive perspectives on children’s social and behavioral development (pp. 77–125). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Prothrow-Stith, D. (1987). Violence prevention curriculum for adolescents. Education Development Center.
• Prothrow-Stith, D. (1991). Deadly consequences: How violence is destroying our teenager population and a plan to begin solving the problem. HarperCollins Publishers.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)