Assessing agency of university students : validation of the AUS Scale
Jääskelä, P., Poikkeus, A.-M., Vasalampi, K., Valleala, U. M., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2017). Assessing agency of university students : validation of the AUS Scale. Studies in Higher Education, 42 (11), 2061-2079. doi:10.1080/03075079.2015.1130693
Julkaistu sarjassa
Studies in Higher EducationPäivämäärä
2017Tekijänoikeudet
© 2016 Society for Research into Higher Education. This is a final draft version of an article whose final and definitive form has been published by Taylor & Francis. Published in this repository with the kind permission of the publisher.
Fostering agency as a core component of professionalism is seen as a critical task of higher
education. However, the tools for assessing university students’ agency, and the
pedagogical and relational resources needed for its development, are lacking. The present
study describes the theoretical foundations and factor structure of the newly developed
Agency of University Students (AUS) Scale, which assesses students’ course-specific
agency. In the factor analysis, ten factors emerged. Four of these – Interest and motivation,
Self-efficacy, Competence beliefs and Participation activity – are seen to represent
individual resources of agency. The other four factors – Equal treatment, Teacher support,
Peer support and Trust – represent relational sources of agency. Finally, Opportunities to
influence, and Opportunities to make choices represent contextual sources of agency. The
psychometric properties and uses of the scale are discussed.