CONSTRUCT VALIDATION FOR THE GERMAN TEST ANXIETY INVENTORY-ARGENTINEAN VERSION (GTAI-A) IN A SPANISH POPULATION

ABSTRACT

 Test anxiety is one of the fundamental problems students face, and it may have a negative effect on academic performance. Thus, it is absolutely fundamental to have valid, reliable psychometric measures to allow an efficient evaluation. One of these tools is the German Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI-G) (Hodapp, 1991), a self report made up of 30 items with a four-factor measurement model: Emotionality, Worry, Interference and Lack of confidence. The Spanish version of the test, called GTAI-A was presented by Heredia, Piemontesi, Furlan, and Hodapp (2008), using a sample of Argentinean university students. The aim of our study was to obtain empirical evidence of the construct validity of the GTAI-A using a sample of 158 Spanish students at the University of the Balearic Islands, all belonging to the European Higher Education Area. The latent four-factor structure was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Empirical evidence concerning the reliability of the factors and the criteria validity of the instrument was also obtained. The results confirm and consolidate the four-factor measurement model, which maintains adequate reliability values, and provide evidence of criterion validity (concurrent and predictive) with respect to the criteria variables considered as its nomological network.

KEYWORDS: test anxiety, construct validity, GTAI-A, measurement model, structural equation modeling.

PAGES: 413-429