The SAAS-R: A New Instrument to Assess the School Attitudes of Students With High and Low Academic Achievement in Spain

ABSTRACT

We examined the psychometric properties of the School Attitude Assessment Survey–Revised in a Spanish population (n = 1,398). Confirmatory factor analysis procedures supported the instrument's five-factor structure. The results of discriminant analysis demonstrated the predictive power of the School Attitude Assessment Survey–Revised scales as regards academic performance. Implications for education and assessment are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment of achievement
• assessment of intelligence
• cross-validation
• school counseling
• psychosocial development

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The present work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Award number: EDU2012-32156) and the Vice Chancellor for Research of the University of Alicante (Award number: GRE11-15). The last co-author is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Reference of the grant: BES-2013-064331).

Notes

1. Data were also analyzed by using the ML method, based on the Pearson correlation coefficients, and tested with the S-B scaled χ² statistic. In this analysis, the CFI was also considerably high (CFI =.928).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pablo Miñano Pérez

Pablo Miñano Pérez works as a primary teacher at a school in Alicante, Spain. Since 2008, he also works as an associate teacher at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics at the University of Alicante. His research interest are focused on academic achievement, underachievement, academic motivation, intelligence and research methodology.

Juan Luis Castejón Costa

Juan Luis Castejón Costa is full Professor at the area of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Alicante since 2002. In the research fields, his lines of work are focused on academic achievement, motivation, emotional intelligence, transversal competences and employment of university graduates.

Raquel Gilar Corbi

Raquel Gilar Corbi is Professor at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics at the University of Alicante, Spain. She has extended experience in management, teaching, elaboration and development of training and educational programs, quality evaluation and human resources management.

Alejandro Veas Iniesta

Alejandro Veas Iniesta is a researcher and PhD student in the Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics, at the University of Alicante, Spain. His studies are focused on academic achievement, underachievement, IRT models and research methodology.