EVALUATION OF THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF A NEW SCALE FOR ACADEMIC STRESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Keywords:
scale, academic stress, subscale, academic factors, factor analysisAbstract
This study focuses on the development and validation of a scale to measure perceptions of academic stress and its sources among university students. The scale, which includes 40 items, was developed based on empirical evidence and a review of contemporary literature. Experts (n=4) participated in the content validation process of the instrument before it was administered to students (n=70). The developed instrument demonstrated a high internal consistency reliability of .939 (Cronbach's alpha), and factor analysis resulted in four correlated and theoretically meaningful factors. The results of the factor analysis showed that the KMO value, which assesses the suitability of data for factor analysis in our study, is 0.752, thus KMO = .752 > .0.5 supports the factor analysis. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity, which confirms that the variables significantly interact, showed that the chi square value of Bartlett's is 2167.847. Degrees of freedom (df) are 780. The significance level (Sig.) is .000, which is less than 0.05. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity where (Sig) = .000, therefore p < .005, approximates the value of the Chi Square test, and the values and results of the factor analysis revealed four factors. The Cronbach's Alpha value for the four factors ranged from (.883 ~ .924). This scale, which takes about 10 minutes to complete, provides a valuable tool for measuring academic stress and its sources in the university environment.
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