Psychometric Properties of a Survey on STEM Students’ Perceptions of Generic Skills

Abstract

Given the emerging needs to understand STEM students’ perceptions of generic skills, a survey has been developed with the aim to assess STEM students’ self-assessment of generic skills in terms of the extent to which they agree that the skills are important to their future career and how would they assess their current level of competency in the skills. A total of 1232 first-year students from three universities participated in the study. A number of psychometric properties were being examined: principal component analysis was conducted to explore how each question reflects the underlying constructs that intend to measure the proposed generic skills, and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted by fitting the hypothesized factor structure to the self-assessment items. On the basis of the psychometric validation, eight genericskill scales were derived, namely, academic & problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills, community & citizenship knowledge, leadership skills, professional effectiveness, information & communication literacy, critical thinking and self-management. Further, internal consistency and internal structure of each individual scale were examined. In conclusion, the psychometric validation for the set of self-assessment items as a whole as well as for individual scales all lends support for the instrument as a reliable and valid measure on STEM students’ perceptions of generic skills. In this paper, we will discuss the different psychometric validation methods used to understand the differences between students’ self-assessment on the importance of the generic skills and their competency of these skills, future uses will also be highlighted.