Assessment of learning efforts is important in providing a better understanding of learners of different disciplines. Lack of a valid and reliable instrument is making the assessment of learning efforts difficult. This paper describes the design and development process of a learning efforts instrument to be used among engineering students. The learning efforts items were generated based on Carbonaro's learning efforts model. He proposed that learning efforts constitute three components, namely, intellectual effort, rule-orientated effort and procedural effort. The draft instrument was judged by experts on its face validity and was subsequently distributed to 360 engineering students, who were instructed to rate their agreement to given statements. The subsequent reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis supported the existence of two components. In conclusion, the data provided evidence that the efforts construct may be different from the learning efforts model proposed by Carbonaro in 2005. However, further analysis showed the existence of two components instead of three for the learning efforts construct that would fit the Malaysian education context. Thus, this paper provides evidence that replication research using the same instruments in cultural differences can provide differences in answers and outcomes.