Mohammad Asl Mohammad Alizad; Hamid Taher Neshat doust; Hoshang Talebi; Ahmad Abedi
Abstract
The acquisition and promotion of Students' academic competence in the scholastic process is a desirable outcome for any educational system. Having a measure for accurately assessing students’ academic competence is very important. Therefore, the goal of this study was construction and validation ...
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The acquisition and promotion of Students' academic competence in the scholastic process is a desirable outcome for any educational system. Having a measure for accurately assessing students’ academic competence is very important. Therefore, the goal of this study was construction and validation of the academic competency questionnaire and identification of its dimensions and components. The population of interest includes all male and female first year high school students in Tabriz. A sample of 660 students participated in the study through multi-stage cluster sampling method. The initial instrument was developed based on the Model of Academic Competence and Motivation (McGrew, 2013). Validity of the instrument was determined by utilizing the Content Validity Ratio (CVR), exploratory factor analysis and concurrent correlation with the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The results of exploratory factor analysis affirmed 5 significant factors for the “orientation towards self” subscale, 6 factors for the “orientation towards learning” subscale and 8 factors for the “orientation towards others” subscale. The goodness-of-fit indicators obtained from the second-order confirmatory factor analysis also confirmed this structure including three main subscales, 19 factors and 109 items. In general, the research findings showed that this questionnaire has the necessary psychometric properties to assess the academic competence of high school students and can be used as a useful tool in this field.
َali nikbakht; hamid nashtdoost
Abstract
According to various cognitive models of emotional disorders, anxious and depressed individuals always give priority to negative information rather than positive and neutral ones. Moreover, tests and treatments designed to modify interpretation bias take advantage of limited tools developed in this respect. ...
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According to various cognitive models of emotional disorders, anxious and depressed individuals always give priority to negative information rather than positive and neutral ones. Moreover, tests and treatments designed to modify interpretation bias take advantage of limited tools developed in this respect. The Ambiguous Scenarios Test (AST) is also a pragmatic one to measure interpretation bias in clinical situations. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Ambiguous Scenarios Test (AST) in Iranian society and formulate it for application in research on interpretation bias relevant to depression. To this end, a total number of 240 university students (61 boys and 179 girls) enrolled at the University of Hormozgan were selected using simple random sampling method. The psychometric properties of the test were similarly examined using exploratory factor analysis, ROC curve, test-retest method with two-week interval, calculation of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, correlation with mood states, diagnosis of people with high and low moods, and correlation with scores of the Dysfunctional Thoughts Scale. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the entire test and the correlation coefficient for the test-retest method with two-week interval were 0.78 and 0.72; respectively. The correlation between the given test and the Dysfunctional Thoughts Scale was equal to -0.57 and the correlation coefficient between group membership and the Ambiguous Scenarios Test (AST) was 0.38. Overall, the results showed that the given test was endowed with proper internal consistency, validity, and reliability and it could also distinguish individuals with negative interpretation bias from those with positive one.
