A Mixed Approach in Constructing a Scale for Measuring Students' Academic Failure

Academic failure is one of the most important issues in the educational system, which constitutes a major part of the concerns of parents, educators, educators and custodians of the educational institutions of society. Its occurrence and exacerbation have numerous individual, familial and social consequences. The present study has aimed to determine the factors related to students' academic failure in Tehran University.

In this study, the statistical population includes all undergraduate students studying at Tehran University. A sample of 800 people was selected by stratified random sampling. Questionnaire items were obtained from the qualitative research results of the first part of the study. After performing and eliminating confused questionnaires, 746 questionnaires were analyzed using classical test approach. The questionnaire items are results of a qualitative research conducted by researchers using the phenomenological method identifying the indicators associated with students' academic failure. After the initial formulation, Lawshe content validity ratio method was used to determine the quantitative content validity. The questions were provided to 12 experts and after making changes using their comments and final approval, their validity was determined. Exploratory factor analysis was performed by SPSS software and confirmatory factor analysis was performed using PLS software.

Data analysis led to the identification of 16 factors. The reliability of the questionnaire was computed calculated by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient for each factor and all of them were acceptable amount. Z score was calculated for normalization.

The results showed that various factors play role in shaping students' academic failure. Also, the questionnaire developed to measure the factors related to the formation of students' academic failure, has appropriate psychometric properties and could be used to identify factors associated with students' academic failure.