IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reihed/v65y2024i8d10.1007_s11162-024-09814-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Quality Experience in Undergraduate Research Using Item Response Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Tien-Ling Hu

    (Indiana University Bloomington
    William & Mary)

  • Dubravka Svetina Valdivia

    (Indiana University Bloomington)

Abstract

Undergraduate research, recognized as one of the High-Impact Practices (HIPs), has demonstrated a positive association with diverse student learning outcomes. Understanding the pivotal quality factors essential for its efficacy is important for enhancing student success. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of survey items employed to gauge the quality of undergraduate research, including alignment with Kuh and O’Donnell’s (2013) eight HIP characteristics, alongside assessments of reliability, validity, and generalizability across demographic groups. The study assesses the validity and reliability of these measures at both the scale and item levels using data from the National Survey of Student Engagement’s (NSSE) HIP Quality Topical Module. The methodological approaches employed include Exploratory Factor Analysis, Parallel Analysis, Item Response Theory, and Differential Item Functioning (DIF). Our findings uncover a misalignment between NSSE’s HIP Quality module items and HIP characteristics, leading to the identification of seven subscales instead of eight. Nevertheless, four subscales—Reflective and Integrative Learning, Real-World Applications, Interactions with Others, and High-Performance Expectations—emerge as valid indicators of undergraduate research experiences. While specific items yield valuable insights at the item level, refinement is recommended for others. Despite the identification of two items exhibiting DIF, their negligible effect sizes suggest that major revisions are unwarranted solely on DIF grounds. This study offers recommendations for item refinement, including the incorporation of new items, wording updates, and tailored utilization of assessment tools within educational institutions. These recommendations are intended to empower educators and researchers to effectively capture the quality dimensions of students’ undergraduate research experiences, thereby fostering their academic success.

Suggested Citation

  • Tien-Ling Hu & Dubravka Svetina Valdivia, 2024. "Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Quality Experience in Undergraduate Research Using Item Response Theory," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 65(8), pages 1965-1991, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reihed:v:65:y:2024:i:8:d:10.1007_s11162-024-09814-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11162-024-09814-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11162-024-09814-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11162-024-09814-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Song, Juwon & Belin, Thomas R., 2008. "Choosing an appropriate number of factors in factor analysis with incomplete data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 3560-3569, March.
    2. Henry Kaiser, 1970. "A second generation little jiffy," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 35(4), pages 401-415, December.
    3. Hirotugu Akaike, 1987. "Factor analysis and AIC," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 317-332, September.
    4. Heather Thiry & Sandra L. Laursen & Anne-Barrie Hunter, 2011. "What Experiences Help Students Become Scientists? A Comparative Study of Research and other Sources of Personal and Professional Gains for STEM Undergraduates," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 82(4), pages 357-388, July.
    5. Chalmers, R. Philip, 2012. "mirt: A Multidimensional Item Response Theory Package for the R Environment," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i06).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhao, Jianhua & Shi, Lei, 2014. "Automated learning of factor analysis with complete and incomplete data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 205-218.
    2. Caldas, Stephanie V. & Broaddus, Elena T. & Winch, Peter J., 2016. "Measuring conflict management, emotional self-efficacy, and problem solving confidence in an evaluation of outdoor programs for inner-city youth in Baltimore, Maryland," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 64-71.
    3. Taha Hannachi & Sonya Yakimova & Alain Somat, 2024. "A Follow up on the Continuum Theory of Eco-Anxiety: Analysis of the Climate Change Anxiety Scale Using Item Response Theory among French Speaking Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(9), pages 1-16, August.
    4. Izolda Pristojkovic Suko & Magdalena Holter & Erwin Stolz & Elfriede Renate Greimel & Wolfgang Freidl, 2022. "Acculturation, Adaptation, and Health among Croatian Migrants in Austria and Ireland: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Andrea C Vial & Janine Bosak & Patrick C Flood & John F Dovidio, 2021. "Individual variation in role construal predicts responses to third-party biases in hiring contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-28, February.
    6. Siwarit Pongsakornrungsilp & Pimlapas Pongsakornrungsilp & Theeranuch Pusaksrikit & Pimmada Wichasin & Vikas Kumar, 2021. "Co-Creating a Sustainable Regional Brand from Multiple Sub-Brands: The Andaman Tourism Cluster of Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-23, August.
    7. Jiwon Lee & Midam An & Yongku Kim & Jung-In Seo, 2021. "Optimal Allocation for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-10, September.
    8. Benjamin G Schultz & Catherine J Stevens & Peter E Keller & Barbara Tillmann, 2013. "A Sequence Identification Measurement Model to Investigate the Implicit Learning of Metrical Temporal Patterns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-1, September.
    9. Daniela Andreini & Diego Rinallo & Giuseppe Pedeliento & Mara Bergamaschi, 2017. "Brands and Religion in the Secularized Marketplace and Workplace: Insights from the Case of an Italian Hospital Renamed After a Roman Catholic Pope," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 529-550, March.
    10. Bangyi Yan & Shiguang Ni & Xi Wang & Jin Liu & Qianjing Zhang & Kaiping Peng, 2020. "Using Virtual Reality to Validate the Chinese Version of the Independent Television Commission-Sense of Presence Inventory," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    11. Christoph, Inken B. & Roosen, Jutta & Bruhn, Maike, 2006. "Willingness to pay for genetically modified food and non-food products," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21303, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Nana Kim & Daniel M. Bolt & James Wollack, 2022. "Noncompensatory MIRT For Passage-Based Tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 992-1009, September.
    13. Andreas Wienke & Anne M. Herskind & Kaare Christensen & Axel Skytthe & Anatoli I. Yashin, 2002. "The influence of smoking and BMI on heritability in susceptibility to coronary heart disease," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    14. Chetan Doddamani & M. Manoj, 2023. "Analysis of the influences of built environment measures on household car and motorcycle ownership decisions in Hubli-Dharwad cities," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 205-243, February.
    15. Byrd, T. A. & Marshall, T. E., 1997. "Relating information technology investment to organizational performance: a causal model analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 43-56, February.
    16. Marcin Chlebus, 2014. "One-day prediction of state of turbulence for financial instrument based on models for binary dependent variable," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 37.
    17. McCausland, William J. & Miller, Shirley & Pelletier, Denis, 2011. "Simulation smoothing for state-space models: A computational efficiency analysis," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 199-212, January.
    18. Berry, Brian J.L. & Okulicz-Kozaryn, Adam, 2008. "Are there ENSO signals in the macroeconomy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 625-633, January.
    19. Nicos Nicolaou & Scott Shane, 2019. "Common genetic effects on risk-taking preferences and choices," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 261-279, December.
    20. Stephen Richards, 2010. "Author's response," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(4), pages 920-924, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:reihed:v:65:y:2024:i:8:d:10.1007_s11162-024-09814-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.