Development and validation of the sense of competence scale - revised

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure the sense of competence of traditional age college students across the dimensions that define the construct. The Sense of Competence Scale-Revised (SCS-R) was developed to provide a measure of Chickering's (1969) first vector, an important psychosocial construct. Administrators can use data from the instrument to modify an institution's academic and social environment to enhance the development of the intellectual, physical, and interpersonal competencies of college students. During the development and validation, various aspects of the SCS-R were examined in accordance with the validity framework outlined by Messick (1995). Of the six types of validity evidence proposed by Messick (1995), four were the primary focus: content, substantive, structural and generalizability. The evidence generated from the study suggested that the chosen items for the SCS-R support the validity of estimates of a student's personal assessment of their sense of competence.