The development and construct validation of a Spanish version of an Academic Self-Concept scale for middle school Hispanic students from families of low socioeconomic levels.

Abstract

For a sample of 305 6th, 7th and 8th grade students, of whom 95% was from economically disadvantaged Hispanic families and for whom English was their second language, evidence was sought regarding the reliability and construct validity of scores on a Spanish version of an academic self-concept measure entitled Dimensions of Self-Concept (DOSC), comprising five subscales bearing the same names as those of the five hypothesized constructs that they were intended to operationalize: Level of Aspiration, Anxiety, Academic Interest and Satisfaction, Leadership and Initiative, and Identification versus Alienation. Reliability estimates varying between .72 and .80 were judged to be reasonably satisfactory. Results from oblique factor analysis lent empirical support for the hypothesized constructs of Anxiety, Leadership and Initiative, and Identification versus Alienation. Scores associated with the subscales of Level of Aspiration and Academic Interest and Satisfaction generated a factor interpreted as a fusion of the two constructs of Level of Aspiration and Academic Interest and Satisfaction.