Commonly Measured Student Success Constructs

In this section, we offer a beginning list of commonly measured constructs in student success research. This list will be updated frequently. We organized the list based on common themes but it might be imperfect.  For some, what might be helpful is to review the table of contents below and read through the scale names. This might help you find exactly what you need for your survey! 

For each measure, we include a description of the scale, the scale instructions, items, and response coding (when available), and the APA citation and link to the article. 

Remote access 

If you are working off-campus, access to some articles listed below will require you are signed into the campus Virtual Private NetworkLinks to an external site. (VPN). 

Copyright concerns

Scales and measures are generally protected by copyright, and copyright owners of some scales have been known to restrict their use Links to an external site.. We have tried to exclude scales that have the most problematic usage restrictions from this list. If you use a scale in your own work, however, it’s up to you to consult individual measures or the articles in which they’re published to see if there are conditions on their use, e.g. if permission is required before an article can be published about research using that scale. If you have questions about particular uses, contact research@library.ucsc.edu. 

Seeking Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval

All human subjects survey research needs to be approved by the UC Santa Cruz Institutional Review Board (IRB) to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects in research conducted by UC Santa Cruz researchers. The general ethical considerations of survey research include “confidentiality and anonymity, respecting people’s privacy, and their right to know what will happen to the information they provide” (Punch, 2003, p.35). 

Everyone who can access the survey and un-identified data should pass the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative Program (CITI training). CITI training includes modules that cover federal policies and practices to ensure research integrity and quizzes. The basic training usually takes learners approximately 4.5 hours to finish.

We welcome your feedback!

Our hope is to continuously build and strengthen the Survey Toolkit to better serve our shared campus goals of research and evaluation. If you have material to contribute or suggestions on how to improve the Toolkit, please feel free to provide feedback to the assessment team at the UCSC Institutional Research, Assessment, and Policy Studies (IRAPS, surveys@ucsc.edu) or request a consultation (https://iraps.ucsc.edu/surveys/consult.html).

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Constructs

Campus Engagement & Belonging

College Adjustment

• • • Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire, Buhrmester, Furman, Wittenberg, & Reis (1988)
    • The College Adjustment Test (CAT), Pennebaker (2013)
    • End-Term Adjustment to College Measure, English, Davis, Wei, & Gross (2017)

Sense of Belonging

• • • Sense of Belonging to Campus Measure, Hurtado & Carter (1997)
    • Student-Peer Measure, Hoffman, Richmond, Morrow, & Salomone (2002)
    • Student-Faculty Measure, Hoffman, Richmond, Morrow, & Salomone (2002)
    • Sense of Belonging Scale, Anderson-Butcher & Conroy (2002)
    • Belonging Uncertainty (3-items), Walton & Cohen (2017)
    • Sense of Belonging Scale, Walton & Cohen (2017)

Thriving Quotient

• • • The Thriving Quotient™(TQ), Schreiner (2020)

Coping and Adaptive Responding

Brief Cope Measure

• • • The AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale, Vallecorsa, Tittle (1985)
    • The Brief COPE, Carver (1997)

Resiliency

• • • Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-25, Connor & Davidson (2003)
    • The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, Tooley, Christopher, & Bernard (2008)
    • Resilience Scale-25, Madewell & Ponce-Garcia (2016)

Culture, Race and School Climate 

Cultural Incongruence

• • • Cultural Incongruence Scale, Gloria & Kurpius (1996)

Microaggression Scale

• • • The Racial Microaggression Scale, Torres-Harding,  Andrade Jr., & Romero Diaz (2012)
    • The Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS), Sanchez, Adams, Arango, & Flannigan (2018)

Perceived Discrimination

• • • 20-Item Perceived Discrimination Scale, Williams, YU, Jackson, & Anderson (1997)

Critical Consciousness

• • • The Critical Consciousness Scale (CCS), Diemer, Rapa, Park, & Perry (2017)

Diversity-Related Beliefs

• • • Openness to Diversity and Challenge, Pascarella, Edison, Nora, Hagedorn & Terenzini (1996)
    • Strategic Colorblindness Scale - Invalidated, but used in Goff, Jason, Nichols & Di Leone (2003)
    • Psychosocial Costs to Racism to Whites (PCRW) Scale, Spanierman & Heppner (2004)
    • Multiculturalism and Assimilation, Wolsko et al (2006)
    • Appreciation of Difference, Plaut, Garnett, Buffardi & Sanchez-Burks (2011)
    • Diversity Endorsement Measure, Plaut et al (2011)
    • Color-evasion - Adapted from Neville et al (2013)

Familial Dynamics & Obligations

• • • Parentification Inventory, Hooper (2019)
    • Family Achievement Guilt, Covarrubias, et al (2020)

Fairness, Equity & Political Beliefs

• • • Economic Justification, Jost & Thompson (2000)
    • Activism Orientation Scale, Corning & Myers (2002)
    • Meritocracy Beliefs, Townsend et al (2010)
    • Beliefs in a Just World, Lucas et al (2011)
    • Belief in School Meritocracy (BSM) Scale, Wiederkehr et al (2015)

Help-Seeking

Help Seeking

• • • Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Help short form (ATSPPH-SF), Picco, Abdin, Chong, Pang, Shafie, Chua, … Subramaniam (2016) and Fischer & Farina (1995)
    • Help-Seeking - Modified, Karabenick (2003)
    • Help-Seeking and Concealment Items, Marchand & Skinner (2007)
    • Comfort in Interactions, Townsend et al (2019)

Mental and Physical Health 

Affect

• • • Affect - Adapted from Townsend et al (2019)

Depression

• • • Beck’s Depression Inventory- II (BDI-II), Beck, Steer, & Brown (1996); Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh (1961)
    • The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D Scale), Ratliff (1977)
    • The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Short Form (CES-D-S), Levine (2013)

Stigma/Mental Health Stigma

• • • Stigma Scale, Vogel, Wade, & Ascheman (2009)

Stress

• • • Perceived Stress Scale, Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein (1983)
    • Stress Overload Scale – Short, Amirkhan (2012)

Motivation

Academic Motivation

• • • Student’s Motivation Towards Science Learning (SMTSL) Questionnaire, Tuan*, Chin, & Shieh (2005)
    • Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), Alivernini & Lucidi (2008)
    • Goal Endorsement (Communal/Agentic), Diekman, Brown, Johnston, & Clark (2010)
    • Interdependent and Independent Motives, Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, & Covarrubias (2012)
    • Academic Motivation Scale, McCord & Matusovich (2013)

Growth Mindset

• • • Implicit Theory of Intelligence Scale, Abd-El-Fattah & Yates (2006)
    • Short Grit Scale, Dweck (1999) and Dweck (2006)

Self-Evaluations

Academic Self-Concept

• • • The Personal and Academic and Self-Concept Inventory, Fleming, & Whalen (1990)
    • Academic Self-Description Questionnaire, Skaalvik (2003)
    • Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS), Cokley & Patel (2007) and Reynolds (1988)

Self-Efficacy

• • • Bandura’s Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale, Bandura (1997)
    • General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Luszczynska, Scholz, & Schwarzer (2005)
    • Science Identity, Chemers, Zurbriggen, Syed, Goza, & Bearman (2011)
    • Science Self-Efficacy Scale, Robnett, Chemers, & Zurbriggen (2015)
    • Students' Motivation Toward Science Learning (SMTSL), Robnett, Chemers, & Zurbriggen (2015)
    • Perceptions of Science Utility Values, Smith, Brown, Thoman, & Deemer (2015)
    • Prosocial Goals, Jackson, Galvez, Landa., Buonora, Thoman, & Gibbs (2016)

Self-Esteem

• • • Collective Self-Esteem Scale, Luhtanen & Crocker (1992)
    • Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Rosenberg (1965)

Social Identities

Ethnic and Gender Identity

• • • Bem Sex Role Inventory, Bem (1974)
    • Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, Phinney (1992)
    • Ethnic Identity Scale, Umaña-Taylor, Yazedjian, & Bámaca-Gómez (2004)

Social Identities

• • • The Social Identities and Attitudes Scale (SIAS), Picho & Brown (2011)

Social Support

Parent Support

• • • Career-Related Parent Support Scale, Mazer & Thompson (2012)
    • Parental Academic Support Scale, Mazer & Thompson (2012)

General Social Support Skills

• • • Inventory of Socially Supportive Behavior (ISSB), Barrera (1981)
    • The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley (1988)