Chapter two
SINGLE ITEM FOR ACADEMIC STRESS STUDY. ACCEPTABILITY AND EVIDENCE OF CONVERGENT VALIDITY
Arturo Barraza Macías Universidad Pedagógica de Durango Abstract This paper aims to: a) determine the acceptability of the data generated by three different versions of single item to measure academic stress and, b) establish the evidence of convergent validity that would support the use of three different versions of single item to measure academic stress. To achieve these objectives, an instrumental study was carried out through the application of a questionnaire with five sections and 19 items, including the three items of interest (Intensity 10, Frequency 5 and Intensity 5) and the three variables for the convergent analysis (depression, vital satisfaction and family support link). The questionnaire was applied to 300 high school and higher education students from the city of Durango, in Mexico. The main results are inclined by the items that offer a zero / high intensity scaling for their response and, particularly, by the item with five response options for presenting a higher level in the correlation coefficient in relation to the variables vital satisfaction and family support link. Key words: stress, SISCO inventory, single item, validation.
Introduction Instruments for measuring academic stress have had a slow evolution due to the difficulties inherent in their conceptualization; in 2007, from a database made up of 59 investigations carried out from 1996 to 2006, however, Barraza (2007) was able to show the existence of a great diversity of measurement instruments. By the time being, he reported, having found in the analyzed investigations, a great diversity of questionnaires, and there were only two cases having used the instrument a second time: In fact, from the analysis carried out on the 59 investigations, 57 different questionnaires could be found. This situation led him to conclude that "the diversity of instruments, in general, and of questionnaires, in particular, is merely a reflection of the problems detected in relation to the multiplicity of ways of conceptualizing academic stress" (Barraza, 2007, para. 32).
PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. TRAILS WHICH FORK
Página 25
