Evaluation of Student Skills and Beliefs Survey: Item Analysis, Factor Structure, and Measurement Invariance Analysis

Abstract

The present study evaluated the psychometric properties and dimensionality of the Student Skills and Beliefs Survey administered to N = 5,981 students in a local school district in South King County, WA. Item analysis revealed that the overall internal consistency of the survey is excellent, as measured by Cronbach's α = .91. Factor analysis revealed three stable factors: academic responsibility (8 items, α = .85), social-cognitive skills (12 items, α = .85), and academic competence (6 items, α = .79). Configural (factorial) invariance is stable across gender and ELL-status, but not for different grade bands. Metric invariance did not hold for gender and ELL-status, but after identifying and removing three non-invariant items, partial metric invariance was achieved. The study concludes with recommendations for further development of the Student Skills and Beliefs Survey, as well as possible future analyses.