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Assessing Personal Initiative among Vocational Training Students: Development and Validation of a New Measure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2014

Nekane Balluerka ,
Arantxa Gorostiaga  and
Imanol Ulacia
Nekane Balluerka*
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU (Spain)
Arantxa Gorostiaga
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU (Spain)
Imanol Ulacia
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nekane Balluerka. Departamento de Psicología Social y Metodología de las Ciencias del Comportamiento. Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU. Avda. de Tolosa, 70. 20018. San Sebastián (Spain). Phone: +34–943018339. Fax: +34–943015670. E-mail: nekane.balluerka@ehu.es
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Abstract

Personal initiative characterizes people who are proactive, persistent and self-starting when facing the difficulties that arise in achieving goals. Despite its importance in the educational field there is a scarcity of measures to assess students’ personal initiative. Thus, the aim of the present study was to develop a questionnaire to assess this variable in the academic environment and to validate it for adolescents and young adults. The sample comprised 244 vocational training students. The questionnaire showed a factor structure including three factors (Proactivity-Prosocial behavior, Persistence and Self-Starting) with acceptable indices of internal consistency (ranging between α = .57 and α =.73) and good convergent validity with respect to the Self-Reported Initiative scale. Evidence of external validity was also obtained based on the relationships between personal initiative and variables such as self-efficacy, enterprising attitude, responsibility and control aspirations, conscientiousness, and academic achievement. The results indicate that this new measure is very useful for assessing personal initiative among vocational training students.

Keywords

personal initiativetest developmentpsychometric propertieseducational field
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 17 , 2014 , E83
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2014 

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