Development and Validation of the Student At-Risk of Dropping Out Screening Questionnaire
Dropping-out is a greatly preoccupying social phenomenon considering its numerous consequences. It is not a particularly new one but its consequences have increased over the past decades. Many researchers agree that dropping-out is a multidimensional phenomenon resulting from a combination of risk factors that interact with each other. These risk factors are of an academic, personal and family nature. Over the past twenty years, studies focused on understanding the concept of dropping-out have increased and allowed us to further our knowledge regarding both the characteristics of at-risk students and the different predictive factors of dropping-out. An important shortcoming can however be noted, the absence of a tool able to screen students that are at-risk of dropping-out. This article’s objective is to present the overall approach to the development and the validation of the Students At-Risk of Dropping-Out Screening Questionnaire. Two experimentations were completed to verify the psychometric qualities of the questionnaire toward 14 and 15 years old students, sample 1 was composed of 247 high school students from the Montreal region and sample 2 (756 participants) from three schools from the Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières and Quebec region. The results from the various analyses show acceptable psychometric qualities, notably for internal consistency, reliability regarding its scales and sub-scales, stability over time and predictive and conceptual validity.