Psychometrics

Background. Self-efficacy refers to students’ perceived confidence in their ability to tackle learning tasks. Research shows that self-efficacy serves as an important predictor of academic achievement and relates to students’ academic success, self-regulated learning, and motivation. It is therefore important to understand how self-efficacy develops and manifests itself in Russian schoolchildren and relates to their academic achievement.

Objective. To establish evidence of the validity and reliability of domain-specific self-efficacy scales developed for elementary and middle school students.

Design. Messick’s unified framework was used to establish validity. The surveys were administered to elementary and middle school students in two regions of Russia.

Results. The pilot testing of the self-efficacy scales for elementary school, using exploratory (n = 972) and confirmatory (n = 972) factor analyses, resulted in a four-factor model, which was later confirmed with a different sample of elementary students (n = 1,392) with good reliability estimates (α = 0.75–0.82). The pilot testing of self-efficacy scales for middle school, using exploratory (n = 583) and confirmatory (n = 584) factor analyses, resulted in a three-factor model, showing excellent reliability estimates (α = 0.88–0.93).

Conclusion. The evidence of construct validity suggests that the domain-specific self-efficacy scales for elementary and middle school students can be recommended for use by researchers and practitioners. The article presents ideas for additional validation studies and future research using domain-specific self-efficacy scales.

Background. Modern society is characterized by the widespread use of social media, which provides users with new communication, leisure, work, and study opportunities. The growth of online communication time leads to the development of new special communicative needs. These circumstances prompted us to develop the “Questionnaire on Adolescents’ Needs to Communicate with Their Parents Online and Offline” (QANCP).

Objective. We set out to study the relationship between adolescents’ hierarchy of communicative needs and the characteristics of child-parent relations by developing and testing the psychometric characteristics of the QANCP.

Design. One hundred and twenty-eight teenagers (56 boys and 72 girls, age 15-17) took part in the research. The research methods included theoretical analysis, modeling, questionnaires, and statistical analysis. The tools used were: 1) the customized (authorial) “Questionnaire of adolescents’ needs to communicate with their parents online and offline” (QANCP); and 2) the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) by Armsden and Greenberg (1987) in the Sadovnikova and Eliseeva adaptation (Eliseeva, 2013).

Results. The results of the qualitative research proved the acceptability of the QANCP scales. Expert assessments showed that the test had sufficient face and content validity. Statistically significant differences in the parameters measuring adolescents’ communicative needs in groups with different types of relations with their parents were established.

Conclusion. Testing of the QANCP questionnaire showed that the QANCP is a valid and reliable instrument to measure adolescents’ communication with their parents in online and offline formats. It was established that there is a connection between the characteristics of child-parent relations in adolescence and the hierarchy of communication needs of “adolescent-parent” communication online and offline.