A Translation and Cross-Cultural Validation of the Academic Success Inventory for College Students

• Other Authors: Lee, Jiyoon (authoraut)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Educational psychology
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-4979

The present study aimed to translate the Academic Success Inventory for College Students (ASICS; Prevatt et al., 2011), which was originally developed in an English speaking Western culture in the United States, into the Korean language and to test the cross-cultural validation of the Korean version of the ASICS with a sample of Korean college students. This translation and adaptation of the Korean language version of the ASICS is intended to be used to in cross-cultural research to enhance our understanding of academic success in Korean college student and to improve cross-cultural measurement generalizability in the area of academic success in college students. The present study strictly followed prescribed and validated translation procedures suggested by researchers to translate the original ASICS into Korean language (Brislin, 1970; Chapman & Carter, 1979; Geisinger, 1994; Hambleton, 2001). Given both the current lack of effective measurements of academic success in college students and the limited existing information regarding these measurements in non-Western cultures, the present study makes a significant contribution to research in the area of cross-cultural measurement of academic success in college students. Data analyses of the present study were conducted in order to find empirical evidence for the reliability and four validities such as criterion, convergent, discriminant, and factorial validities of the Korean translated version of the ASICS with a South Korean sample. The Korean ASICS's reliability was calculated by internal consistency (e.g., a coefficient alpha value) and compared to the Cronbach's alpha reliability from a U.S. sample. The criterion validity of the Korean ASICS was conducted by a normal test of correlations between students' subscale scores of the ASICS and their overall grade point averages. The convergent validity was conducted by a normal test of correlations between students' subscale scores on the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The discriminant validity was examined by using a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) for comparison between high performing students and low performing students among Korean college students. Finally, the factorial validity was tested by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis to investigate the consistency of the factor structure of the Korean ASICS with that of the original English version of the ASICS. In result, the ten Korean ASICS subscales were found to possess an excellent overall internal consistency of.91. Correlational analysis between the ten scale scores of the Korean ASICS and cumulative GPA of the Korean sample were conducted and eight subscales were positive and showed statistically significant correlations with GPA at a level of .01, thus supporting criterion validity in predicting GPA with a Korean sample. As hypothesized, there appears to be strong evidence that ASICS and MSLQ questionnaires converge to measure constructs of academic success and motivation. The results of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to investigate differences in the ten mean scale scores between the high performing and the low performing groups showed statistically significant on seven out of the ten Korean ASICS subscales. In terms of factor structure of the ASICS with a Korean sample, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis of the ten-factor model of the Korean ASICS fit best. The findings of the present study may provide a preliminary reference for the first use of a translated version of the ASICS as a potential prescreening tool for at-risk college students in South Korea. Findings need to be carefully interpreted when gathered from local populations in Korea. === A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Summer Semester, 2012. === April 23, 2012. === Academic Success, College Students, Cross-Cultural Validation, Korean, Translation === Includes bibliographical references. === Frances Prevatt, Professor Directing Dissertation; Georgios Lampropoulos, Committee Member; Deborah Ebener, Committee Member.