Page No 192-207 Rambar Lavanya and Subramanian Kadhiravan
Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India
The primary objective of this study is to develop a reliable and valid scale for assessing
the social competence, of youth. To achieve this, focus group discussions were
conducted with school teachers, college professors, psychologists, parents, and youth
to identify subconstructs of social competence. A total of 157 questions were initially
generated based on the literature and insights obtained from the focused group
discussion. A five-point Likert scale was employed for the response format, ranging
from Never-(1) to Always-(5). The ABC of content validation was utilized to ensure
content validity, and the content validity index was calculated following Yusoff’s method
(2019). Subsequently, the initial pool of 157 items was refined to 100 items. The finalized
item pool was administered to a sample of 327 participants aged between 15 to 24
years chosen conveniently for exploratory factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis
was subsequently employed to validate the identified constructs and determine their
interrelationships. The reliability of the tool was found to be satisfactory. The results of
these analyses and their implications are presented in the article.