Developing a measure of student deviance: A research note

Area of Science:

• Sociology
• Higher Education Studies
• Psychology

Background:

• University students are expected to adhere to institutional authority and rules.
• Confronting authority structures violates established norms of the student role.
• Existing measures of student protest are inadequate for assessing general student role deviance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate new measurement tools for assessing student deviance.
• To introduce Attitudinal Support for Confrontation (ASC) and Behavioral Support for Confrontation (BSC) scales.
• To differentiate between attitudinal and behavioral dimensions of student confrontation.

Main Methods:

• Development of two novel scales: ASC and BSC.
• Testing for reliability, convergent validity, and theoretical relevance.
• Analysis of response patterns and internal consistency.

Main Results:

• The ASC and BSC scales demonstrate internal consistency.
• Both measures effectively capture a continuum of confrontation.
• Attitudinal support characteristics align with existing protest measures.
• Significant differences were observed between attitudinal and behavioral support for confrontation.

Conclusions:

• The developed ASC and BSC scales provide reliable and valid measures of student deviance.
• These scales offer a nuanced understanding of student confrontation, distinguishing between attitudes and behaviors.
• The findings contribute to a more accurate assessment of student role deviance in higher education.