Development and validation of subscales for assessing first-generation university students’ experiences

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The measurement of student experience has long occupied a central place in educational research, yet the tools available to researchers have often been developed in contexts very different from those in which they are ultimately applied. The creation of the First-Generation University Students Scale represents an effort to address this gap in a region where higher education has undergone rapid and profound change. Across Latin America, universities that once served a narrow social elite now enroll student bodies in which first-generation students constitute at least half of the population in most institutions. This demographic shift is not merely statistical; it reflects structural transformations driven by expanded access policies, including free tuition schemes that have lowered economic barriers for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. When such a large proportion of the student body shares the experience of being the first in the family to attend university, understanding that experience becomes essential to institutional planning, teaching practice, and policy design.

The methodological approach adopted in the study follows the well-established logic of instrument development in the social sciences. An instrumental design was implemented, moving through phases of item development, scale construction, and final evaluation. What distinguishes a rigorous validation study from a casual questionnaire effort is the sequence of checks applied at each stage. The researchers began with cognitive interviews conducted with a small group of participants, a step that allows item writers to discover how respondents actually interpret the wording of questions. Cognitive interviewing is particularly valuable when measuring experiences that may be shaped by cultural context, because a phrase that seems neutral to a researcher may carry different connotations for a first-generation student navigating unfamiliar institutional norms.

Following the pre-pilot phase, the analytic sample of 502 participants was deliberately split to serve two complementary purposes in psychometric analysis. Exploratory factor analysis, conducted with 200 responses, is used when researchers do not yet know how items will cluster together. It allows the underlying dimensions of the instrument to emerge from patterns of covariation among responses. Confirmatory factor analysis, performed on the remaining 302 responses, then tests whether the structure suggested by the exploratory phase holds in an independent sample. This two-stage separation is considered good practice because validating a scale on the same data used to generate its structure tends to produce overly optimistic estimates of fit. By holding out a separate confirmation sample, the study provides a more honest appraisal of whether the subscales correspond to stable dimensions of first-generation students’ experiences.

The final instrument comprises 25 items organized into theoretically meaningful subfactors. The emphasis on theory in this phrasing matters. A scale whose items group together only by statistical accident offers little guidance to future users, whereas subscales that map onto coherent domains of experience can be interpreted, compared, and tracked over time. The multidimensional framing is itself a contribution, because much of the earlier research on first-generation students examined isolated characteristics rather than the constellation of factors that together influence whether students remain in education. Dimensions such as family support, academic integration, financial strain, and institutional belonging interact with one another, and a scale that captures several of these simultaneously allows researchers to study their relationships rather than treating each in isolation.

Reliability and validity are the twin criteria by which any psychometric instrument is judged, and the study reports adequate performance for several subfactors alongside more limited results for others. This candid reporting is scientifically important. In scale development, it is common for some domains to cohere more readily than others, particularly when the construct being measured is complex or when respondents’ experiences within a domain vary widely. A subscale with weaker reliability may still prove useful as a starting point for refinement, and transparency about which domains performed well allows future researchers to prioritize improvements rather than discovering the weaknesses independently. The reported internal structure within each domain, even where performance was uneven, establishes a foundation on which subsequent versions of the instrument can be built.

The context in which the validation took place deserves attention. Data collection occurred during the first semester of Chile’s 2025 academic year, between March and August, using a cross-sectional design. Cross-sectional studies capture a snapshot of the population at a single point in time, which is well suited to establishing whether an instrument functions coherently but cannot by itself demonstrate how experiences change across a student’s academic trajectory. The transition to university, which the scale is designed to assess, is a period of substantial flux, and longitudinal applications of the instrument in future research could reveal how the measured dimensions evolve as students move through their programs. Such applications would also allow researchers to test whether scores on particular subscales predict outcomes such as persistence, academic performance, or wellbeing.

The rationale for developing a regionally grounded instrument rests on a body of evidence showing that first-generation students in Latin America share some characteristics with peers in the Global North while differing in others. As elsewhere, these students tend to achieve lower grades, face greater risk of dropping out, and encounter more difficulty financing their studies. Their families often have limited familiarity with the ways universities operate, which constrains the guidance they can provide during admission processes and beyond. However, access to higher education in Latin America depends to a greater degree on economic capital than in many Global North countries, where admission to prestigious programs is not as tightly linked to parental professional status. In some Latin American systems, students whose parents are not professionals are less likely to be admitted to selective institutions, making admission procedures themselves a significant source of exclusion. A measurement tool developed in one region cannot simply be transplanted to another without testing whether its assumptions hold.

Within families, the literature points to distinctive dynamics that a contextualized scale can begin to capture. Mothers have been documented as playing a particularly influential role in shaping the educational aspirations of first-generation students, supporting the choice of institution, and accompanying their children through admission. At the same time, the arrival of a first university student in a family can generate internal tensions, particularly when the student must leave the family home or when the demands of academic life conflict with family expectations. These relational dimensions of the first-generation experience are often invisible in administrative data, which capture enrollment and completion but not the social negotiations that surround them. An instrument that includes such domains acknowledges that student experience extends beyond the classroom.

The definition of a first-generation student adopted in the research also carries methodological weight. Students are typically classified as first-generation when their parents or guardians hold non-professional qualifications. Notably, having a sibling who attends or has attended university does not remove a student from this category, because the sibling belongs to the same generation. This clarification prevents a common source of inconsistency across studies, in which definitions vary in ways that make findings difficult to compare. Harmonized definitions are a prerequisite for the comparative research agenda that the authors envision, in which the scale could be used to study first-generation students across different Latin American countries with confidence that the same construct is being measured.

The study acknowledges an important limitation: reliance on purposive, non-probabilistic samples. Such samples are efficient for instrument development because they reach the target population directly, but they limit the generalizability of findings to the broader population of first-generation students. The recommended path forward, implementing stratified sampling, would draw participants in proportion to their representation in defined strata such as institution type, region, or demographic characteristics. Stratified designs strengthen both the representativeness of results and the ability to make comparisons between groups, which is essential if the scale is to inform policy at national or regional levels rather than remaining valid only for the specific populations from which the original samples were drawn.

The timing of this research situates it within a period in which first-generation students have faced compounding pressures. Over the past decade, digital transformation, episodes of social unrest, and the COVID-19 pandemic have reshaped the conditions under which students pursue their degrees. Disruptions to in-person instruction tend to fall hardest on students who lack quiet study spaces, reliable connectivity, or family members who can advise them on navigating institutional systems. Understanding how these pressures distribute across the student population requires measurement tools sensitive to the specific circumstances of first-generation students, and the validated subscales offer one such tool for researchers and practitioners working in the post-pandemic university.

Beyond its immediate findings, the study contributes to a broader conversation about how educational research can support socially responsive institutions. The authors position the scale as a robust starting point for advancing research and practice, with the potential to inform more inclusive policies as further evidence accumulates. This framing reflects a realistic view of instrument development as an iterative enterprise. A first validated version does not settle all questions, but it converts a domain of experience that was previously studied only through qualitative accounts or ad hoc measures into something that can be assessed systematically, compared across contexts, and monitored over time. For universities enrolling large proportions of first-generation students, such measurement capacity is a precondition for evaluating whether support programs achieve their intended effects.

The open-access publication of the work, appearing in the Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, also facilitates uptake by practitioners and researchers throughout the region who may lack access to subscription-based literature. Widespread availability is particularly consequential for measurement instruments, whose value grows with each additional independent validation. As other research teams apply the subscales in their own contexts, evidence will accumulate about which domains perform consistently and which require adaptation, moving the field closer to the comparative, multidimensional understanding of first-generation students’ experiences that prior scholarship has identified as lacking.

In sum, the development and validation of this scale addresses a documented gap in Latin American educational research, where first-generation students have only recently been studied as a distinct phenomenon. By combining careful item development, cognitive testing, and a split-sample psychometric strategy, the study establishes a foundation for measuring a multidimensional construct within the region. Its limitations, including non-probabilistic sampling and uneven performance across subfactors, are clearly stated and point directly toward the next stages of research. For the students whose experiences the instrument is designed to capture, the ultimate significance lies in whether better measurement translates into better-targeted support, and the study provides the methodological groundwork on which such improvements can be built.

Subject of Research: Development and validation of subscales for assessing first-generation university students’ experiences

Article Title: Development and validation of subscales for assessing first-generation university students’ experiences

Article References: Flanagan-Bórquez, A., Soriano-Soriano, G., Jiménez-Quinteros, P., Carvajal-Araneda, K., & Escalante-Barrios, E. (2026). Development and validation of subscales for assessing first-generation university students’ experiences. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 15(1), Article 23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44322-026-00070-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44322-026-00070-3

Keywords: Development, validation, subscales, assessing, first-generation, university, students, experiences, scientific research