Development of a scale to measure Academic Capital in high-risk college students.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to create a psychometric instrument that quantitatively measures academic capital in college students. St. John, Hu, and Fisher (2011) define academic capital as a set of social processes that aid students in acquiring the knowledge and support necessary to access and navigate higher education. Content validity, construct validity, and reliability of the Academic Capital Scale developed in this study were established. Furthermore, in addition to validating the six components of academic capital identified by St. John et al. (2011), two additional components of academic capital were identified through principal components analysis. Providing higher education scholars and practitioners with a quantitative measure of academic capital will allow institutions to critically examine and restructure their current support programs for high-risk college students.