Student Cynicism: An Initial Italian Validation of C.A.T.C.S. (Cynical Attitudes Toward College Scale)

Student cynicism is an attitude characterized by a sense of frustration and negative beliefs mainly due to disillusion of expectations about students’ own course of studies. It could be directed towards academic experience in general, or towards specific aspects of the academic environment. It consists of emotional, cognitive and behavioral dimensions and could be used as an indicator of distress, insecurity and disinvestment towards the academic environment. Brockway et al. (2002) produced an 18- item self-report questionnaire to measure student cynicism, named Cynical Attitudes Toward College Scale (CATCS).