A Mixed Methods Approach to Instrument Validation: Identifying Underachievers with the School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised

The School Attitude Assessment Survey – Revised (SAAS-R: McCoach & Siegle, 2003) is one of the few existing instruments designed to measure factors predicting students’ academic achievement and distinguish underachievers from achievers. While SAAS-R has been used across various settings, some inconsistencies were found in its efficacy to identify underachievers (Pérez et al., 2014). Using a mixed-method approach to revalidate the SAAS-R, confirmatory factor analyses results with 405 secondary school students confirmed the five-factor model, with each factor distinguishing underachievers from achievers. However, qualitative analysis showed that there are still misalignments between SAAS-R results with students’ actual academic performance.