Design and validation of the scale of motivation to publish a scientific article in Peruvian university students (MOPu-AC)

Introduction: Promoting student scientific production in Peru requires motivation to publish scientific articles. The objective of this study was to design and validate the scale of motivation to publish a scientific article in Peruvian university students. Methods: Cross-sectional instrumental study, in which 417 university students of health sciences (58.0% women), aged 18 to 35 years (SD = 20.77, SD = 3.49), who were selected under a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, participated. Participants were recruited from medicine, nursing, psychology and nutrition, from two universities in southern Peru (private and state). The scale was designed in 5 stages, following international standards. Aiken's V coefficient was used to assess content-based validity, confirmatory factor analysis was used to analyze internal structure, and reliability was assessed by means of the Omega coefficient. Results: All items obtained a favorable evaluation in the expert judgment (V > 0.70). The confirmatory factor analysis supported an internal structure composed of 9 items distributed in 1 factor, reporting satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices (Chi2 = 62.72 with 27 gl, CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.02 and WRMR = 0.06). Finally, reliability reached a very acceptable level (ω = 0.96). Conclusion: The MOPu-AC scale demonstrates initial psychometric evidence of content-based validity, internal structure and reliability in university students in southern Peru; therefore, it may be useful as a management tool for formative research.