Approaches to studying in higher education Portuguese students: a Portuguese version of the approaches and study skills inventory for students

Abstract

This paper examines the validity of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students-short version (ASSIST; Tait et al. in Improving student learning: Improving students as learners, 1998), to be used with Portuguese undergraduate students. The ASSIST was administrated to 566 students, in order to analyse a Portuguese version of this inventory. Exploratory factor analysis (principal axis factor analysis followed by direct oblimin rotation) reproduced the three main factors that correspond to the original dimensions of the inventory (deep, surface apathetic and strategic approaches to learning). The results are consistent with the background theory on approaches to learning. Additionally, the reliability analysis revealed acceptable internal consistency indexes for the main scales and subscales. This inventory might represent a valuable research tool for the assessment of approaches to learning among Portuguese higher education students.

Psychometric Properties of the Short ASSISTScales

“…The instrument has a proposed structure, based on theory and research, where the items are organized into three main scales. These scales are commonly referred to as the deep, strategic, and surface approaches to studying (Tait et al, 1998), and previous research has uniformly confirmed the three-factor structure of the ASSIST (Byrne et al, 2004;Diseth, 2001;Entwistle, Tait, & McCune, 2000;Kreber, 2003;Richardson et al, 2005;Valadas et al, 2010). In the present sample, the internal consistencies of the full-length scales were 0.81 (deep approach), 0.80 (strategic approach), and 0.77 (surface approach).…”

“…The items comprise three main scales (the deep, surface, and strategic approaches to studying), each of which is comprised by four to five subscales. Factor analytic studies across a range of disciplines have consistently reproduced the theoretically proposed threefactor structure (Byrne, Flood, & Willis, 2004;Diseth, 2001;Kreber, 2003;Richardson, 2005Richardson, , 2010Valadas, Goncalves, & Faísca, 2010), and the same structure was also recently found in a cross-cultural sample of occupational therapy students (Bonsaksen, Småstuen, et al, 2017). Internal consistency has been found to be high for the main scales, while it has been deemed acceptable or in the lower range for the subscales (Ballantine, Duff, & Larres, 2008;Bonsaksen, Småstuen, et al, 2017;Reid, Duvall, & Evans, 2005;Reid, Evans, & Duvall, 2012;Richardson, 2010;Richardson, Gamborg, & Hammerberg, 2005;Valadas et al, 2010).…”

“…The forced extraction of three factors was based on theory and subsequent research on the full ASSIST instrument (Byrne et al, 2004;Diseth, 2001;Kreber, 2003;Tait et al, 1998;Valadas et al, 2010). In addition, we visually inspected the scree-plots, assessed Eigenvalue (λ) estimates, and assessed the proportion of variance explained by the extracted factors.…”

“…Positive associations between the deep and strategic scales are frequently found in studies where the full ASSIST has been used (Bonsaksen, Småstuen, et al, 2017;Byrne et al, 2004;Diseth, 2001;Entwistle et al, 2000;Richardson, 2005Richardson, , 2010Richardson et al, 2005;Valadas et al, 2010). In addition, researchers have generally avoided trying to verify the factor structure of the ASSIST at the item level, and have rather confirmed the main scales based on the structure of the 13 subscales (e.g., Bonsaksen, Småstuen, et al, 2017;Kreber, 2003;Valadas et al, 2010). The magnitude of items comprising the full ASSIST tend to produce more factors than the three factors as theoretically proposed.…”

The Mediating Effects of Approaches to Learning on the Academic Success of First-Year College Students

“…Previous research reports that the ASSIST produces satisfactory reliability coefficients when administered to samples of North-American and European students Flood & Wilson, 2008;Tait & Entwistle, 1996), with internal consistency ranging from 0.70 (Diseth, 2001) to 0.83 (Byrne et al, 2004) for the surface approach; between 0.81 (Ballantine, Duff, & Larres, 2008;Diseth, 2001) and 0.85 (Ballantine et al, 2008) for the deep approach; and between 0.81 (Diseth, 2001) and 0.88 (Ballantine et al, 2008) for the strategic approach. A previous study with Portuguese college students reported coefficients of 0.79 for the surface approach, 0.81 for the deep approach, and 0.83 for the strategic approach (Valadas, Gonçalves, & Faisca, 2010).…”