Within the history of social networking applications the use of Snapchat has risen rapidly. Users of Snapchat can apply filters to change their appearance before they share photos. The present study aimed at assessing body dysmorphic features among Snapchat users of “Beauty-Retouching of Selfies” and its relationship with quality of life. A total of 507 Arab females participated in this study by responding to the Quality of Life (QOL) and Body Dysmorphic Features (BDF) scales as well as some demographic questions. Results showed that the mean of the body dysmorphic features was slightly above the theoretical mean of the BDF scale, which indicates that females who use Snapchat Beauty-Retouching features have a high tendency toward body dysmorphic features. Additionally, the quality of life mean was clearly above the theoretical mean of the QOL, which means that participants in general have a good quality of life. The study found a fundamental relationship between the two variables, QOL and BDF, and the relationship is in the negative direction. The results indicated that the relationship between BDF and QOL changes with age, educational levels, and social status. This study proposes further research to focus on identifying the most noteworthy factors influencing body image and QOL.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factor structure of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale and examine possible wording effects on a sample of 1,429 students from the United Arab Emirates University. Correlated traits-correlated uniqueness as well as correlated traits-correlated methods were used to examine the scale’s eight-factor models. The results of confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation indicated two models provided the best fit. The first, a one-dimensional model, assumes the correlation of the standard errors in the positive items. The second assumes a one-dimensional model and two method factors that correspond to the negative and positive items.

This study aimed to explore school factors that influence students’ achievements in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. The study sample for TIMSS 2015 consisted of 4838 students in eighth grade; 2172 girls, 2666 boys, and 156 schools from Abu Dhabi attended and participated in TIMSS 2015. Principal component analysis (PCA) was run on 77 items of school questionnaires administered to school principals to provide information about the school contexts for teaching and learning. The five factors from the school questionnaire were general school resources, school discipline and safety, parental support, principal experience and education, and library and instruction resources. Multiple regression models were implemented to examine the impact of school factors on student achievement in TIMSS 2015. The models are statistically significant, indicating that they fit the data well. This also demonstrates a significant linear relationship between students’ achievement in TIMSS 2015 and the variables related to school factors.

Test‐taking strategies are important cognitive skills that strongly affect students’ performance in tests. Using appropriate test‐taking strategies improves students’ achievement and grades, improves students’ attitudes toward tests and reduces test anxiety. This results in improving test accuracy and validity. This study aimed at developing a scale to assess students’ test‐taking strategies at university level. The scale developed was passed through several validation procedures that included content, construct and criterion‐related validity. Similarly, scale reliability (internal reliability and stability over time) was assessed through several procedures. Four samples of students (50, 828, 553 and 235) participated by responding to different versions of the scale. The scale developed consists of 31 items distributed into four sub‐scales: Before‐test, Time management, During‐test and After‐test. To the researcher’s knowledge, this is the first comprehensive scale developed to assess test‐taking strategies used by university students.

In survey measurement, acquiescence bias is a response effect that occurs when respondents agree to the item or the question in the scale regardless of its content. It is assumed that negative items force participants not to agree with some items. Using the mixture approach, however, is not without a substantial cost on both the structure and the scale psychometric properties. The effects of including negative items in scales is what this study tried to investigate. Therefore, the aim of the study is to empirically evaluate the effects of changing negative items to their equivalent positively worded items on the reliability and the factor structure of psychological scales. It is hypothesized that this approach improves the scale factors structures and reliability. Seven commonly used psychological scales that have both negatively and positively worded items have been selected. The scales were applied on seven different samples with a total number of 4192 participants from a public university in the United Arab Emirates. The results confirmed that changing negative items to their equivalent positively directed items systematically and significantly increased the reliability values as well as improved the factor structure of psychological scales.