Designing and Psychometric Evaluation of Iranian Students’ Academic Stress Questionnaire (IAASQ)

Academic stress is one of the factors affecting the health of adolescents. The aim of present study was to design an academic stress questionnaire for Iranian adolescents with regard to the cultural and educational system of the country.

After reviewing the literature and identifying available tools in 2018, Iranian adolescents' views on academic stress were extracted. Similar questions have been used in other tools. According to expert opinion, the results were overviewed and the initial version was designed. The steps of content validity and instrument reliability were carried out. Internal consistency was investigated with Cronbach's alpha (α) and repeatability with Intra Class Correlation (ICC). After dividing the data into two randomized samples, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 899 subjects and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with 717 subjects were performed. The association between this tool and the Morgan and Jink’s Self Efficacy Scale and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire questionnaires was investigated. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Mplus softwares.

The Iranian Adolescent Academic Stress Questionnaire (IAASQ) was designed with 57 questions. Relevancy and clarity of the whole tool were obtained as 0.81 and 0.83, respectively. In different domains, Cronbach's alpha was in the range (0.58-0.85) and ICC (0.80 (95% CI:0.66-0.90)). In the EFA, 9 factors were extracted. CFA confirmed the suitability of the model in another sample. Discriminant and convergent validity tool was approved.

The IAASQ questionnaire has acceptable reliability and validity. This tool is recommended for use in related studies in the Iranian community.