The Development, Evaluation, and Refinement of the Planning to Achieve Goals scale: Applying Graded Response Model of Item-Response Theory in Test Construction

This study aims to design, evaluate, and refine the scale of planning to achieve future goals based on indicators from the American School Counselors Association. For this purpose, a sample of second-grade students from Sirjan and Rafsanjan in three disciplines of humanities, experimental science, and mathematics (n = 1030) was selected by multistage cluster sampling method and the desired scale was implemented on them. The initial scale consisted of 48 questions and 7 factors designed on a 5-point Likert scale continuum which was analyzed using the principal component analysis model and graded response model of item-response theory. The results showed that of the first 48 questions according to the item information function diagram, eight questions were omitted, the remaining questions had a slope parameter in the range of 1.091 to 2.899 and category thresholds between -0.056 to 1.379. To validate the long and short form factor scores, the correlation between the two test factor scores showed that the correlation between the two general scores and the component scores were all above 0.9 and nearly 96.8% of the respondents in both test forms correctly classified. Therefore, it can be concluded that IRT models are a useful tool for constructing, evaluating, and refining short measurement tools that are valid as long forms.