A scale assessing social academic participation in class for university students

Abstract EN

An instrumental study was carried out, with the purpose of developing a scale for assessing academic social participation (ASP) in class in university students, and testing its psychometric properties.

Students from two national universities answered the ASP scale’s items online, along with a scale assessing academic social self-efficacy.

Exploratory factorial analysis was applied, obtaining a three dimensional scale (including academic help seeking - AHS-, work with peers -WP-, and autonomous contribution -AC-).

All three dimensions were different but significantly correlated (p < .01; r ranging from .14 to .41), which allows to admit academic social participation as a unified construct.

Internal consistency values for all three scales (AHS α = .83; WP α = .81; AC α = .91) and the complete scale (ASP α = .88) indicate a good reliability.

Correlations between sub scales and academic social self-efficacy partially support construct validity.

Further studies are recommended to provide additional support on this psychometric property.

Also, more specific analyses are suggested to elucidate the studied behaviors' natures.