Patterns of response to an approaches to studying inventory across contrasting groups and contexts

The development of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students ( ASSIST) is reported, which incorporates a revised version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. This questionnaire was completed by three separate samples; 1284 mainly first-year students from six British universities, 466 first-year students from a Scottish technological university; and 219 stud ents from a 'historically disadvantaged' South African university. Analyses of these data were designed to explore the patterns of response found in s ub-groups which varied in terms of their levels of attainment and contexts. Maximum likelihood analysis of the largest sample confirmed the expected t hree factors of deep, surface apathetic, and strategic approaches to studyi ng, and almost identical patterns were also found in the other two samples, and in students having contrasting levels of attainment. There were, howev er, some interesting minor differences in the South African sample. K-means relocation cluster analysis was then carried our on the largest sample and produced clusters with generally coherent patterns of response. However, o ne persistent low attainment cluster showed unexpected, dissonant patterns of response, combining moderately high scores on the sub-scales of both dee p and surface apathetic approaches, associated with low scores on the strat egic approach.