Research Article

Secondary School Students' Academic Risk Taking Behaviors: A Scale Development Study

Volume: 4 Number: 2 January 14, 2013
EN TR

Secondary School Students' Academic Risk Taking Behaviors: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

 Extended Abstract Purpose: The present study aims to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring secondary school students' mathematics-oriented academic risk taking behavior. Method: The participants were 553 secondary school students studying in Manisa and Batman in 2011-2012 academic year first semester and comprised three study groups. Expert opinion was consulted with regard to the scale's content and face validity. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed in order to measure the scale's construct validity. For criterion related validity the correlation Mathematics-Oriented Academic Risk Taking Scale (MOARTS) and Academic Expectations Stress Inventory (AESI) was calculated. The reliability of the MOARTS was tested through such coefficients as internal consistency, split-half and test retest. The item discrimination of the MOARTS was calculated through the corrected item total correlation and a comparison between the top and bottom 27% groups. The validity and reliability analyzes were carried out with SPSS 20.0 and LISREL 8.54 Results: According to first EFA results, a three-factor structure which explained 48.84% of the total variance was obtained. Taking into consideration the items' content and theoretical structure, the primary factor was named Tendency to Difficult Tasks (TDT) the second factor was named Tendency to Negativity Following Failure (TNFF) and the third factor was named Tendency to Recovery Following Failure (TRFF). In order to understand whether the 24 items and three-factor structure obtained as a result of the EFA gives adequate goodness of fit indices, and to obtain further support for construct validity, CFA was performed. The CFA findings from have shown that the scale has adequate goodness of fit indices [χ2/sd=2.54, CFI=.96, NFI=.93, NNFI=95, RFI=.92, IFI=.96, RMSEA=.069 and SRMR=.060]. According to concurrent validity results, there is a negative relationship between AESI and MOARTS; TDT, TRFF [n=119 and respectively, r=-.51, r=-.43, r=-23; p<.001], and there is a positive relationship between AESI and TNFF [n=119, r=.45, p<.001]. These findings have been regarded as proof that MOARTS has concurrent validity. The reliability analysis showed that the internal consistency coefficients were .89, .90, .74 and .80 for the MOARTS, TDT, TNFF and TRFF respectively. On the other hand, the split-half coefficients .74, .90, .74 and .79 for MOARTS, TDT, TNFF and TRFF respectively whereas the test retest coefficients were .95, .96, .90 and .88 for MOARTS, TDT, TNFF and TRFF respectively. The item analysis reported that the corrected item total correlations ranged from .40 and .73 and the differences between the top and bottom 27% groups were significant for all the items included in the scale. Conclusion: In light of the findings it could be argued that the scale is reliable and valid and can be used in order to test secondary school students' mathematics-oriented academic risk taking behaviors.

Keywords

References

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Details

Primary Language

Turkish

Subjects

Studies on Education

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

January 14, 2013

Submission Date

January 14, 2013

Acceptance Date

-

Published in Issue

Year 1970 Volume: 4 Number: 2

APA
İlhan, A., & Çetin, D. (2013). Ortaokul Öğrencilerinin Matematik Odaklı Akademik Risk Alma Davranışları: Bir Ölçek Geliştirme Çalışması. E-Uluslararası Eğitim Araştırmaları Dergisi, 4(2), 1-28. https://izlik.org/JA22CG58TL

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