Establishing the reliability and validity of the ASSIST questionnaire: a South African sample perspective

Abstract

Introduction. The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST Short Version) was used to better understand the students’ approaches to learning in a mathematics classes.Method. Quantitave method was used in this study. Participants were 345 first and second year mathematics students from a university in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The reliability of the ASSIST Short Version was computed by Cronbach’s alpha. The coefficient values from scores of each group are presented with respect to the preliminary data phase and the post-intervention data phase. The validity of the ASSIST questionnaire was computed using content validity which involved the computation of factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis which involved checking whether the theory developed constructs of Deep, Strategic and Surface approaches.Results. The results show that the reliability of ASSIST Short Version, the alpha values ranged between .75 and .83 (preliminary data phase) as well as .65 and .82 (post-intervention data phase). For the content validity the results show that the value of KMO = .769 was acceptable while the Bartlett’s test of sphericity was also statistically significant (p < 0.001). In determining the factor structure from the data, Maximum likelihood factor analysis with Direct oblimin rotation was specified. Construct validity was ascertained by computing through AMOS a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using data from the post-intervention data phase. The results show that the Chi square (χ2) was statistically significant [χ2 = 210.94, df = 132, p < .0001]. The goodness of fit statistics were: TLI = .948, the CFI = .947, and the RMSEA = .054. The results also shows the standardized parameter estimates of the model from the ASSIST questionnaire.Discussion and Conclusion. In terms of reliability of scores from the instrument, the alpha values were accepted for this study because they were comparable to those reported in literature. Validity was computed through factor analysis (content validity) and confirmatory factor analysis (construct validity). Before computing the factor structure of the ASSIST, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were determined. The two values reported in this study indicated that computing the factor analysis was appropriate for the data. Using the Direct oblimin rotation consistently as in reported literature, a three factor solution was accepted in this study. Because these factors were consistent with those reported in literature content validity was acceptable in this study.