Factors Influencing the Relationship Between Psychological Well-Being, Self-Efficiency, and
Personal Growth Initiative Among First Year University Students
A Research Proposal Submitted by:
Name: Kelsey Nairn
Course Name: SBAppSocSci
Due Date: 6th May, 2021
Word Count: 2730
South African College of Applied Psychology
Johannesburg Campus
May 2021
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,TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.....................................................................................................................................................ii
1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................................................1
2. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS........................................................................................................1
3. LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................................................................................................2
4. METHOD............................................................................................................................................................................5
5. RESULTS............................................................................................................................................................................8
6. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS...........................................................................................................................................10
7. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................................11
8. REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................................................12
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Personal Growth Initiative is a concept of metacognition, understanding, and expected engagement in
the context of growth enhancement. It is an attitude toward change and progress through life realms.
Self-efficacy is described as a self-perceived ability to cope with difficult situations. It is the
hierarchical mechanism by which a person can perceive, understand, and explain their feelings. The
idea of general well-being is multi-layered; it is the product of a complex equilibrium between
different aspects of life. This paper aims to look into first-year students' growth initiative, emotional
self-efficacy, and psychological well-being and look into the relationship between personal growth
initiative, emotional self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. A descriptive analysis is needed due
to the nature of the research. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 200 first-year
students from the university. Data was collected using Robitschek's Personal Development Initiative-
II scale, Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS-II, 16-item), and Ryff's Scales of Psychological
Well-being (42-item). Parametric statistical methods were used to analyze the results. According to
the report, there was a positive relationship between PGI and PWB and between self-efficacy and
PWB.
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, 1. INTRODUCTION
Different factors influence psychological well-being in the life of a first-year university
student. The current theoretical understanding of psychological well-being and its influencing factors
is based on very few empirical forms of research. This study attempted to establish the connection
between personal growth initiative (PGI) and levels of self-efficacy with the facets of psychological
well-being, namely, personal growth, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relations,
autonomy, and purpose in life. The research data was collected quantitavely, and the sample was
characterized of 200 first-year university students, of which 130 of the participants were female, and
70 were male. An online survey was administered via the university website to students to explore
the positive or negative relationship between psychological well-being, self-efficacy, personal growth
initiative, and how the data collected correlates with previous research findings. The measurement
tools utilized in this study included Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-being (42-item), the General
Self-Efficacy scale (10-item), and the Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS-11; 16 item), and the
findings were analyzed using the Pearson Product Moment
2. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The purpose of the research was to respond to the following questions:
1. How do personal growth and Self-Efficacy relate to psychological well-being?
2. What effect do self-efficacy and personal growth influence the PWB of first-year university
students?
1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
In my literature review, I noticed a gap of a lack of research conducted on psychological well-
being, self-efficacy, and Personal Growth Initiative among first-year university students. The
significance of this study is to fill this existing gap.
