Year: 2017
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Introduction. Research with the Academic Behavioural Confidence scale using European students has shown that students have high levels of confidence in their academic abilities. It is generally accepted that people in more collectivist cultures have more realistic confidence levels in contrast to the overconfidence seen in individualistic European and North American countries. This research was designed to see if the more realistic confidence level in collectivist countries would be mirrored in Mexican students’ academic confidence scores.Method. The Academic Behavioural Confidence scale was validated in the Mexican university system with a sample of 97 undergraduates at a large autonomous university and the findings contrasted with pre-existing data from 2685 European students.Results. The results suggest that a reduced 14 item scale comprising the same 4 subscales, Grades, Studying, Verbalising and Attendance is the statistically preferable model for both the Mexican and European data. Using the mean confidence levels for the modified sub-scales, it was found that the Mexican psychology students had significantly higher Grades and Verbalising confidences than their European counterparts.Discussion and Conclusion. This contra-prediction finding is considered against the literature from cultural and cross cultural psychology which suggests that people in Collectivist cultures like México have more connected attitudes to their lives and thus would show lower but more realistic self-confidence. Further research to establish the cross cultural validity of the ABC scale is discussed.
Authors: Alma Rosa Águila Ochoa, Paul Sander
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2164645568