Design and Validation of the Academic Research Aptitude Scale

:Universities across the world have now started focusing on creating and nurturing academic researchers. While the importance and benefits of a strong research mindset have been understood, the process of identifying and developing researchers lacks a sense of structure. The current study attempts at filling this gap by proposing and testing the Academic Research Aptitude Scale. The scale was created and tested using the DeVellis (2016) method. The initial pool of items consisted of 29 items that were generated in the course of a brainstorming session. The discussion with experts and literature review resulted in a 22-item instrument which was then reduced to 21 items, post the item analysis. The analysis was carried out on a sample of 303 research scholars and researchers. The exploratory factor analysis helped in the identification of the dimensions and the same was then checked using confirmatory factor analysis. The scale fulfilled the validity requirements and showed high reliability, as shown by Cronbach's alpha score. The final scale consists of 21 items.