Abstract

An educated workforce is key to transforming an economy, such as that of Saudi Arabia, into a diversified and sustainable system. To achieve this goal, young people of college age are expected to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to the new economy. In this study, we examined the relationship between two dispositions that may be critical to the workforce that these undergraduate students are likely to join: self-efficacy and pro-socialness. Self-efficacy (i.e., people’s confidence in their abilities) can foster adequate responses to challenges. Pro-socialness (i.e., people’s consideration of others’ needs and desires) can sustain teamwork. We also examined gender differences, as these students are from a society that is in the process of shedding its patriarchal, gender-segregated past. A convenience sample of male and female undergraduate students of Saudi Arabian descent was surveyed. They were exposed to student-centered instruction at an English-medium university. In this context, two dimensions of pro-socialness emerged, concerning either behavior or understanding others’ emotions. Gender differences favoring women were found to be limited to the former dimension. Notwithstanding the lack of gender differences in self-efficacy, confidence in one’s abilities was more strongly linked to pro-socialness in men. These findings suggest that males and females conceptualize pro-socialness and self-efficacy differently, suggesting distinct interventions if either skill is deficient. In males, instruction targeting one of these dispositions may also benefit the other. In females, deficiencies may be targeted separately.