College performance prediction test

The purpose of this study was to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument that is designed to measure attitudinal, affective, and emotional factors relevant in predicting academic performance in engineering students. The developed instrument makes it possible to obtain a student's profile in terms of his/her attitudes toward science, motivation and anxiety levels that have been revealed to be important factors in previous studies. The research has been developed in various universities in Peru and in different phases: an initial pilot phase with 81 university students; a second phase where the test was applied to 866 engineering students from different socioeconomic and cultural development stratum. The results, after making corrections to the original instrument and verifying the instrument's stability over time (test-retest analysis), makes it possible to affirm that the proposed objective has been achieved, and that an instrument with acceptable reliability and validity of construction is available. Additionally, it will be informed about the predictive ability of the instrument in different considered degrees, and in relation to socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the students. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Huseyin Uzunboylu.