Psychometric Examination of the Freshman Stress Questionnaire Using a Sample of Social Work Students in Spain during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The teaching–learning model implemented in Spanish universities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic has generated a scenario of academic uncertainty amongst Spanish students. In the case of the Social Work degree, this apprehension appears to be linked to the heavy emotional load related to the theoretical–practical curricular contents of the degree. In this sense, the Freshman Stress Questionnaire (FSQ) has presented adequate levels of reliability and validity for its use on a population of Spanish university students; however, there is as yet no psychometric studies for its use on social work students. This study sought to analyse the psychometric properties of the FSQ using a sample of social work students. The sample comprised 732 students at three Spanish universities doing a social work degree (88.3 per cent women, 11.7 per cent men) with an average age of 21.51 years (standard deviation (SD) = 3.58). The results obtained from the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the FSQ maintained the structure of four correlated factors and suitable reliability values for each dimension. The results of the factor invariance analysis indicate that the FSQ remains stable up to the level of metric invariance for the variable age. Results are discussed with available theory. In this article, the authors produce empirical evidence regarding the following topics: • Undergraduate students are particularly prone to suffer academic stress. • It is necessary to assess possible stress problems in student social workers; for example, those related to Covid-19 health emergency, or other factors such as the emotional toll of practical and theoretical subjects covered by the syllabus. • Despite the significance of studying student social workers’ academic stress, there are no measuring scales to assess such construct in the Spanish population up to date. • The results of this study show empiric evidence of the Freshman Stress Questionnaire (FSQ) reliability and validity, thus endorsing its use on Spanish student social workers. Other findings vouch for applying FSQ without age limitations. • The conclusion establishes the relevance of counting with validated instruments for the assessment of student social workers, such as FSQ, in order to generate university learning spaces that promote academic excellence, research development and undergraduate outreach.