Trajectories of college students' general self-efficacy, the related predictors, and depression: A piecewise growth mixture modeling approach

• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15750
• Publication Date: 2023-04-25T01:25:17Z
• Authors: Xinqiao Liu; Xinyu Ji; Yifan Zhang
• Keywords: Depression; Self-Efficacy

General self-efficacy plays a critical role in the development of college students, and mastering students' general is helpful to explain behavior psychological performance. Based on data from same cohort students for four consecutive years, this study used piecewise growth mixture model identify developmental trajectories self-efficacy, built multinomial logistic regression analyze related predictors different trajectories, further compared differences depression symptoms trajectories. Three were identified: stable-rising (8.7%), stable-decreasing (2.4%), moderate stable (88.9%). With class as reference, gender extraversion are stable-increasing class; gender, extraversion, mother's education level, university tier significantly predict who fall into class. also has significant predictive effect belong However, age, ethnicity, siblings, hometown location, father's BMI, sleep, major not predictors. Furthermore, mean between latent classes significant, scores beyond normal range third fourth years. To promote mental health, we suggest that colleges provide more specific interventions based classification.