Initial Development and Validation of Academic Self Concept Scale

The Academic Self Concept Scale (ASCS) was developed as a measure of the academic facet of self concept for use in high schools. The initial item pool consisted of 80 items, worded to conform to a 5-point Likert type scale. Data obtained from 62 high school students was sub­jected to an iterative item-total correlation and analysis to develop a 40 Item scale that was used in this study. The scale showed an alpha coef­ficient of .89 (<.001). ASCS was found to have validity of .37 (p<.01) with high school class-9 marks and a discriminant validity index of-52 with SPCL (p<001) which lent substantial support to the psychometric quality of the device. It showed a coefficient of .39 (p<.01) in predicting marks for matriculation examination 10 months later and significantly differentiated between students who were academically poor and those who were better. Thus ASCS in the initial stage appeared to be a pro­ missing tool for further development and research. Recommendations were given in the end suggesting that educational as well as clinical uses of the scale can be investigated in educational rehabilitation programmes, and in school counselling settings.