Assessment scale of academic enablers: A validity and reliability study

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to determine how university students evaluate the academic enablers they have acquired. To this end, the Assessment Scale of the Academic Enablers (ASAE) was developed and applied to 5,208 university students to test its validity and reliability. Research Methods: The study employed a quantitative research design during the data collection and the analysis phases. Findings: The ASAE consists of 20 items and three sub-factors: (i) learning competencies, (ii) communication and social competencies, and (iii) homework and responsibility competencies. Item-total correlations were found to vary from 0.44 to 0.70 and factor-loading values from 0.44 to 0.82. The three factors explain 51% of the total variance and the scale’s reliability coefficient is 0.90. Results show that gender makes a significant difference in ASAE scores in favor of women. Also, the mean scores differed statistically depending on faculty. Particularly, students in the Faculty of Education obtained the highest scores in all factors; on the other hand students in the Faculty of Law earned mostly the lowest scores. Implications for Research and Practice: The results show that the ASAE is a valid and reliable measurement tool that universities in Turkey can use to evaluate their success in using academic enablers for increasing students’ academic success.