| Academic competence is a broad construct encompassing skills, attitudes and behaviors promoting students' success in schools (DiPerna & Elliott, 2000). Although there are various measures of academic competence (e.g., the Academic Competence Evaluation Scales -- Teacher Form; ACES-TF; DiPerna & Elliott, 2000), few studies have examined the efficiency with which this construct is measured. Thus, the purpose of this project was to examine and improve the efficiency of measurement of academic competence. Two complementary studies were completed to achieve this goal. The first utilized polytomous Item Response Theory (IRT) techniques to examine the measurement efficiency of the ACES-TF and identify a set of maximally efficient items (SMEI) for each ACES-TF subscale. The second was a pilot study for a brief measure of academic competence based on the SMEIs with an independent sample. Results provide insights regarding the measurement efficiency of the ACES-TF, psychometric properties of a brief measure of academic competence, and improving measurement efficiency of behavior rating scales.;Keywords: Academic Enablers, Short Form Scale Development, Item Response Theory, Academic Competence Evaluation Scales. |
