The development and evaluation of psychometric properties of brief scale academic dissertation defense anxiety brief form (ATS-BF) in Iranian University students: exploratory factor analysis

This study aimed to development and evaluation of psychometric properties of brief scale academic dissertation defense anxiety brief form (ATS-BF) in Iranian University students: exploratory factor analysis. The research design was descriptive and exploratory factor analysis. Four hundred and University students were using convenience sampling method (method online) in Iran and they filled out the anxiety thesis scale – brief form (ATS-BF) of researcher-made (2020), academic grit scale (AGS) of Clark and Malecki (2019) and self-esteem scale (RSEs) of Rosenberg (1989). The data was analyzed using internal consistency, validity divergent, validity discriminant and exploratory and confirmative factor analysis. The analysis was done using SPSS and AMOSS- 24. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the two factors of psychological symptoms of defense anxiety and physical symptoms of defense anxiety explained 62.53 of the total variance. Furthermore, the results showed that the Cronbach's alpha coefficients were ranged from .87 to .87 for the extracted factors, .91 for total scale, and correlation coefficient of the inventory with academic grit was obtained (r= -.404, P<0.01), with positive self-esteem was obtained (r= -.443, P<0.01) and with negative self-esteem was obtained (r= .424, P<0.01), given the appropriate reliability and validity of the brief scale academic dissertation defense anxiety brief form (ATSBF), it can be used to measure academic dissertation defense anxiety among University students population.