Construction and Validation of Academic Perfectionism Scale: Its Psychometric Properties

The present study aimed at construction and validation of Academic Perfectionism Scale for university undergraduates. In Part-I of the study, an item pool was developed and items of the scale were empirically determined for content validation. Factorial validity and internal consistency was determined on a sample of 585 participants including young men (n = 228) and young women (n = 358) with an age ranging from 18 to 25 years (M = 20.84, SD = 1.632). Factor analysis revealed six factor solution, which accounted for 29.7% cumulative variance with .86 alpha reliability. The six factors were named as Parental Expectations, Doubts and Concerns on Performance Quality, Socially Prescribed Perfectionism, Personal Standards, Organization, and Parental Criticism. In part-II of the study, convergent validity was established on an independent sample comprised of University undergraduates (N = 60). Positive correlation of Academic Perfectionism Scale with Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost, Marten, Lahart, Rosenblate, 1990) provided evidence for the convergent validity of the scale.