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Intention to Drop Out (Hardre & Reeve)

EducationReliability: alpha 0.82–0.903 sample items

About this scale

A 4-item measure of student intention to drop out of school or university. Captures the cognitive precursor to actual student attrition; widely used in retention and educational-policy research.

Sample item(s)

“Sometimes I think about dropping out of school.”
“Sometimes I think about quitting and getting a job instead of finishing school.”
“I sometimes consider dropping out of school.”

Reliability

Reported internal consistency: alpha 0.82–0.90. As a rule of thumb, Cronbach’s α ≥ .70 is considered acceptable, ≥ .80 good, and ≥ .90 excellent for established measures.

Notes

Adaptable from high-school to university samples.

Source & citation

Hardre, P. L., & Reeve, J. (2003): A motivational model of rural students' intentions to persist in, versus drop out of, high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 95, No. 2, pp. 347–356.

Hardre & Reeve (2003): Dropout intention scale. JEP, 95(2), 347–356.

Source. Scale details are summarised from the publication cited above. Always consult the original source for the full item set, scoring, and permission to use.

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